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Physician Hospice Myths

Don’t let common myths about hospice lead to unused benefits.

Hospice care is often delayed unnecessarily due to misunderstanding or misinformation about benefits. In-home hospice can mean more time for your patients to focus on the people and activities that matter.

hand holding heart - palliative care symbol

Let’s start with a question.

How many days is considered “the last days of life”? A week? A month? According to Medicare, it’s actually 180 days.

Does that surprise you? The hospice benefit covers the last 180 days of life. That’s 6 months of care, PLUS unlimited additional authorizations as long as eligibility requirements continue to be met. The unfortunate reality is that more than half of patients only receive 18 days of hospice care, even though they were entitled to 6 months of added support.

Choosing hospice sooner is the opposite of giving up because it provides MORE care and MORE time to fully utilize the benefits your patient is entitled to receive. If you were giving up on your patient, you would be reducing or subtracting care, but hospice offers MORE. Choosing hospice is a shift in the goals of care toward quality of life and added support.

  • MORE care centered around personal goals
  • MORE focus on minimizing disruption to normal daily activities
  • MORE time to focus on the people & things that matter most
  • MORE resources to ease the load for your patient’s loved ones

Many specialists assume the PCP or hospital will make the referral, so they don’t. So what happens to the patient? You guessed it. They fall between the cracks and don’t receive the care they need.

Most specialists don’t refer their patients to hospice because they assume they will have to follow the patient. Typically, the PCP or General Practice physician is willing to follow patients even if the specialist made the referral.

Provider Resources

We can help support your patients wherever they are in their health care journey. Check out our hospice provider resources.

 

Learn more

To learn more about hospice services near you, contact your local Elara Caring team.

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