Many people fear hospice because they know that stopping medications can mean accelerated death. 3: Hospice care requires you to stop taking medications Also, hospice meets the needs of patients whether or not the patients’ funds have been depleted. If patients choose to remain in their homes, hospice services are still available 24/7. The philosophy of palliative care is to allow the patient the right to die wherever they desire. People are able to receive hospice care wherever they feel most comfortable, whether that is in their home or in a licensed facility. 2: People have to go to hospice centers in order to receive hospice care.įirst and foremost, hospice care is a philosophy on death and dying rather than a physical place. Palliative care is not designed to shorten or lengthen life, but rather to relieve emotional and physical pain while managing symptoms. Although many professionals are beginning to understand hospice care to a higher degree, they still often refer patients only when they are unmistakably near death. When people are referred, it is usually well past the time they could have originally been admitted into a hospice program. The reason many patients only receive hospice care for short periods of time is because many people who could benefit are not referred. People sometimes live longer because the reduction of stress and increase of comfort can benefit health in a very positive way.
Also, if you outlive the six-month Medicare estimation, you can go off hospice care and come back when you need it. If after six months, however, you are still in need of hospice services, you can receive an unlimited amount of 60-day benefit periods if a hospice director or doctor recertifies that you’re terminally ill. Each initial benefit period lasts 90 days and Medicare estimates people in hospice usually only need two periods. This misconception can be traced back to Medicare, which gives assistance in the form of benefit periods. But there is no rule determined by life expectancy. Many people mistakenly believe that to receive hospice care, the patient must be expected to live less than six months. 1: Hospice places a time limit on patient stays and hastens death. I hope this article will dispel five of the common myths. Nobody likes to dwell on the subject of death, so people are naturally reluctant to study what hospice care is until they are in need of hospice services. But there are still many common misconceptions about hospice. While some people still pass away without their loved ones around them, many are choosing to receive palliative care at home as a way to make the end of their lives as comfortable and rewarding as possible. Prior to hospice, people often died alone, in institutional settings like hospitals. The hospice movement has grown considerably and now constitutes its own segment of the health care system.
In the past 40 years, attitudes towards death and dying in America and much of the rest of the world have slowly changed. The following article was written by Jacob Edward for Next Avenue and is used here with permission.
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