General In-patient Hospice Program

Hospice patients may require differing intensities of care during the course of their disease. The Medicare Hospice Benefit affords patients four levels of care to meet their clinical needs: Routine Home Care, General Inpatient Care, Continuous Home Care, and Inpatient Respite Care.

• Routine Hospice Care is the most common level of hospice care. With this level of care, a individual receives hospice care at their residence, which can include a private residence, assisted living facility or nursing facility.
• General Inpatient Care is provided for pain control or other acute symptom management that cannot feasibly be provided in any other setting. General Inpatient Care begins when other efforts to manage symptoms have been ineffective.
• General Inpatient Care can be provided in a Medicare certified hospital, hospice inpatient facility, or nursing facility that has a registered nursing available 24 hours a day to provide direct patient care.
• Continuous Home Care is care provided for between 8 and 24 hours a day to manage pain and other acute medical symptoms. Continuous home care services must be predominately nursing care, supplemented with –caregiver and hospice aide services and are intended to maintain the terminally ill patient at home during a pain or symptom crisis.
• Inpatient Respite Care is available to provide temporary relief to the patient’s primary caregiver. Respite care can be provided in a hospital, hospice facility, or a long term care facility that has sufficient 24 hour nursing personnel present on all shifts to guarantee that patient’s needs are met. Respite care is provided for a maximum of 5 consecutive days.

Most patients and families miss the true gift of hospice. Hospice is much more than care that is limited to the last few days of life or to a specifi¬c illness. Hospice helps anyone facing a terminal illness live out all the days of their lives with comfort and dignity, and helps their loved ones deal with grief, sadness, and meaning.

Hospice is one of the most misunderstood and underused Medicare benefits.
Read more to find out the accurate truths of Hospice programs…