The client and family members are the most important part of a team that may also include:
Our hospice doctor is part of the client’s medical team. The client can also choose to include their regular doctor or a nurse practitioner on their medical team as the attending medical professional who supervises their care.
In addition, a hospice nurse and doctor are on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to give the client and their family support and care when they need it.
Only the client’s hospice doctor and regular doctor (if you have one)—not a nurse practitioner that you’ve chosen to serve as your attending medical professional—can certify that you’re terminally ill and have a life expectancy of 6 months or less.
If the client needs to receive inpatient care at a hospital, we make all of those arrangements for them. The cost of the client’s inpatient hospital care is covered by their hospice benefit.
The hospice benefit allows our clients and their families to stay together in the comfort of their own home unless they need care in an inpatient facility. If their hospice team determines that they need inpatient care, we will make the arrangements for their stay.
Hospice care is for people with a life expectancy of 6 months or less (if the disease runs its normal course). If you or your loved one live longer than 6 months, you can still get hospice care, as long as the hospice medical director or hospice doctor recertifies that you or your loved one are terminally ill (with a life expectancy of 6 months or less).
Hospice benefits cover the client’s care and they shouldn’t have to go outside of hospice to get care (except in very rare situations). Once hospice care is chosen, your hospice benefits should cover everything needed.
The client must pay the deductible and coinsurance amounts for all Medicare-covered services to treat health problems that aren’t part of their terminal illness and related conditions. The client also must continue to pay Medicare premiums, if necessary.
If you or your loved one’s health improves or the illness goes into remission, you may no longer need hospice care.
There is always the right to stop hospice care at any time. If you or your loved one choose to stop hospice care, you will be asked to sign a form that includes the date the care will end.
No one should be asked to sign any forms about stopping hospice care at the time hospice starts. Stopping hospice care is a choice only you or your loved one can make, and you should not sign or date any forms until the actual date that you want your hospice care to stop.
If the client stops hospice care, they’ll get the type of Medicare coverage they had before choosing a hospice program, like Original Medicare, a Medicare Advantage Plan (like an HMO or PPO), or another type of Medicare health plan. If the client is eligible, they can go back to hospice care at any time.
The Forever Caring advantage is that our clients can take comfort in the fact that once they stop hospice care, our team is equipped to service them as a home health client until they regain their strength or once they are stronger, we can continue to monitor their health as part of the adult day health care program or home health services. Whatever the need, we are always there for our clients.
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