Many of the 674,000 veterans who will die this year are Medicare beneficiaries. Yet, like 90 percent of Americans, most of them don't realize that there is a hospice care benefit available through the Medicare program.
In this section of the toolkit, you will find tools to help educate various members of your Hospice-Veteran Partnership (HVP) as well as the public. We have included general information on hospice and palliative care, an overview of the Medicare hospice benefit, and suggestions for other resources.
Considered to be the model for quality, compassionate care for people facing a life-limiting illness or injury, hospice and palliative care involve a team-oriented approach to expert medical care, pain management, and emotional and spiritual support expressly tailored to the patient's needs and wishes. Support is provided to the patient's loved ones as well. At the center of hospice and palliative care is the belief that each of us has the right to die pain-free and with dignity, and that our families will receive the necessary support to allow us to do so.
Hospice focuses on caring, not curing and, in most cases, care is provided in the patient's home. Hospice care also is provided in freestanding hospice centers, hospitals, and nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Hospice services are available to patients of any age, religion, race, or illness. Hospice care is covered under Medicare, Medicaid, most private insurance plans, HMOs, and other managed care organizations.
Palliative care extends the principles of hospice care to a broader population that could benefit from receiving this type of care earlier in their illness or disease process. No specific therapy is excluded from consideration. An individual's needs must be continually assessed and treatment options should be explored and evaluated in the context of the individual's values and symptoms. Palliative care, ideally, would segue into hospice care as the illness progresses.
Typically, a family member serves as the primary caregiver and, when appropriate, helps make decisions for the terminally ill individual. Members of the hospice staff make regular visits to assess the patient and provide additional care or other services. Hospice staff is on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The hospice team develops a care plan that meets each patient's individual needs for pain management and symptom control. The team usually consists of:
Among its major responsibilities, the interdisciplinary hospice team:
| Partnership for Caring |
| http://www.partnershipforcaring.org |
| Partnership for Caring is a national nonprofit organization that partners individuals and organizations in a powerful collaboration to improve how people die in our society. Among other services, Partnership for Caring operates the only national crisis and information hotline dealing with end-of-life issues and provides state-specific living wills and medical powers of attorney. Its Web site includes a wealth of consumer information on hospice and palliative care. |
| National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization |
| http://www.nhpco.org |
| The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) is the oldest and largest membership organization representing hospice and palliative care programs and professionals in the United States. It is committed to improving end-of-life care and expanding access to hospice care with the goal of profoundly enhancing quality of life for the dying and their loved ones. The NHPCO Web site features several consumer resources in its Hospice & Palliative Care Information section. |
| Official U.S. Government Site for People with Medicare |
| http://www.medicare.gov |
| The U.S. Medicare Web site includes a 16-page guide to the Medicare Hospice Benefit. To download the booklet, click on Publications and then do a search for Medicare Hospice Benefits. |
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You can download the Medicare Hospice Benefit as an Adobe Acrobat file. Allow time for the download to complete. Your screen may be blank while download is in progress. After download completes you can save a copy of the file to your own computer for detailed study. |
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You can download Chapter 6 of the HVP Toolkit as a Microsoft Word file. Allow time for the download to complete. Your screen may be blank while download is in progress. After download completes you can save a copy of the file to your own computer for detailed study. |
This toolkit is provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs National Hospice-Veteran Partnership (HVP) Program. Development of the toolkit was made possible through support by Rallying Points, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, the Center for Advanced Illness Coordinated Care, and other end-of-life care advocates. Information about VAHPC initiatives is made available for use within the Inter-Institutional Collaborating Network on End-of-life Care (IICN) with the assistance of Growth House, Inc.