If you have a question that is not answered here, please email us at info@hns.org , or for more immediate attention, call 978-774-7566.
What is Hospice?
Hospice is a comprehensive, compassionate program of care to help people with life-limiting illnesses maintain dignity and comfort, surrounded by those they love.
In medieval times, hospices were places of rest for weary travelers, the sick and dying. Today, hospice provides physical, emotional, spiritual and social support to patients and their families wherever they call home -- in homes, hospitals, assisted living facilities, and nursing homes.
Hospice care is available to anyone with an illness whose life expectancy is measured in months, rather than years.
What exactly is provided?
Hospice care from Hospice of the North Shore (HNS) includes the services of a physician, registered and licensed practical nurses, social workers, chaplains, certified home health aides, trained volunteers, and bereavement counselors. HNS also provides prescription drugs and medical supplies related to the life-limiting illness, therapies (physical, occupational and speech), nutritional counseling, short-term inpatient care and respite care as needed for the management of the patient’s illness.
Each patient’s care is coordinated by a registered nurse and is provided under the direction of the patient’s attending physician and the hospice medical director. A hospice nurse is accessible 24 hours a day by phone to assist with questions or emergencies and can make a home visit if needed.
Is caring for the patient at home the only place hospice care is offered?
No. While most hospice care is provided to patients in their personal residence, many patients live in nursing homes or assisted living facilities. HNS provides care in patients’ homes, nearly 50 area nursing homes and assisted living facilities, hospice units in area hospitals, and at the Kaplan Family Hospice House in Danvers, Mass.
Can a hospice patient continue with his or her own doctor?
Yes. The HNS medical director is available for consultation with the patient's physician. Hospice nurses will work with the patient's doctor on all aspects of care.
What if people involved in the patient’s care aren’t actually family?
HNS supports the patient and whomever the patient wants to involve in their care. HNS works with many different family caregiver situations, and with patients who have no family.
Can a patient who lives alone get hospice care?
Yes. HNS works with patients who live alone, and helps them plan ahead for when their illness progresses, assisting with arrangements for private-duty help at home, for transition to a long-term care facility, or for care in the Kaplan Family Hospice House.
What if the patient needs to be hospitalized?
HNS can arrange short-term inpatient care in a hospice unit at Salem Hospital or at Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester. A hospice nurse, social worker, and chaplain visit the patient regularly in the hospice unit, and confer with the hospital staff. While not a hospital, the Kaplan Family Hospice House is the first hospice residence in the state of Mass. to be licensed to provide inpatient care to acutely ill patients.
Admission to other hospitals can also be arranged.
The VNA has hospice services; how is hospice care from HNS different?
While several area VNAs have an affiliated hospice program, none have HNS’s breadth of services and depth of experience in caring for patients at the end of life.
When making a choice among hospice programs, the most important factors to consider are the comprehensiveness of services, the expertise and training of staff, and the availability of additional supportive care for the family such as bereavement care.
At HNS, we have developed several programs to ensure continuity of care from VNA to hospice services, including a Bridge Program with Partners Home Care/Salem VNA.
I’m concerned if I choose hospice services in the nursing home, the nursing home staff will feel they weren’t doing a good job.
HNS works in close partnership with the nursing home staff. The nursing home staff provides ongoing expertise in geriatric and chronic illness care, while HNS provides specialized pain and symptom management and emotional, spiritual and social support at the end of life. Our nursing home partners appreciate the added expertise and visits made by HNS nurses, social workers, home health aides, chaplains and volunteers. In addition, HNS provides emotional support and assistance to the nursing home staff who often have long-term relationships with their residents.
Who is eligible for hospice services?
HNS serves persons of any age with any life-limiting illness. Among the illnesses our patients have had are: cancer, cardiac disease, renal disease, neurological illnesses, Lou Gehrig's disease, AIDS, cirrhosis, leukemia, and others. Federal law requires a doctor's statement of life expectancy of six months or less.
Who pays for hospice care?
Medicare and Medicaid, as well as most managed care plans (HMO Blue, Tufts Health Plan, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, etc.) and health insurance carriers provide full coverage for hospice services, usually without co-pays or deductibles. No patient is ever turned away due to lack of insurance coverage or inability to pay. Generous support from the community enables HNS to provide care to anyone who meets basic eligibility criteria.
When is the right time to contact hospice?
At any time during a life-limiting illness, it's appropriate to discuss all of a patient's care options, including hospice. When curative treatments are no longer effective, HNS can help by providing comfort and symptom management, as well as support for family members and loved ones. If a patient is still receiving active treatment for a cure or is not ready for hospice, they may be referred to Palliative Care of the North Shore, a program of HNS.
I always thought that hospice meant giving up hope. Doesn’t it mean that there’s nothing more the doctors can do?
Physicians and patients turn to hospice when their active curative treatment is no longer effective. Hope then focuses on comfort, on living each day to the fullest, on spending time with family. Hospice supports these hopes.
Hospice provides palliative treatment, to help patients remain as comfortable and functional as possible, ensuring the best possible quality of life. Hospice care focuses on comfort, not cure, with an emphasis on pain and symptom control.
Far from giving up hope, patients and families who have used HNS services tell us that hospice actually restores hope and enables patients and their families to achieve their goals and wishes in the time they have remaining.
Who can make a referral to HNS?
Anyone can call: 978-774-7566
- Patients
- Family members or friends
- Physicians
- Discharge planners, continuing care nurses, case managers
- Nursing facility staff
- Clergy