The number of Medicare hospice patients almost doubled between 2000 and 2007, to nearly 1 million. During the same period, Medicare hospice spending jumped 250 percent because of increased enrollments and longer lengths of stay, according to a committee that advises Congress on Medicare.The medical community helped further legitimize the industry recently by offering certifications in hospice care for doctors, nurses and nursing assistants. The American Board of Medical Specialties first issued doctors certificates in hospice care in 2008, when it handed out 1,272 certificates.
In yesterday's Personal Health column from The New York Times, Jane Brody writes about a day she spent visiting four hospice patients with the Visiting Nurse Service of New York.
Hospice workers never know what they may find when they enter the homes of people whose doctors expect them to die within six months. But they are prepared to handle almost anything and have a team of specialists to call upon when needed: doctor, nurse, social worker, spiritual care counselor, bereavement counselor. The home hospice service is but a phone call away 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The needs of patients and families are met within hours, if not sooner; moreover, the cost is usually covered by Medicare or Medicaid.With hospice, death assumes a more natural trajectory, unencumbered by frightening machines and sometimes grotesque interventions of modern medicine that do little, if anything, to prolong life and often make dying more painful for patients and families, as well as costlier for society.
Indeed, studies have shown that, all other things being equal, patients receiving the comfort care provided by hospice tend to live longer and die more peacefully than those who continue to get intensive care for their disease when treatment has ceased to help.
Another great resource to find a hospice in your area is HFA's Hospice Directory, http://www.hospicedirectory.org.
