What Is Palliative Care? What Is Hospice Care?

What Is Palliative Care?

Palliative care is a certified medical specialty that focuses on comfort care, symptom management, and pain relief. Most people have received Palliative care during treatment for a variety of conditions.

Palliative care attempts to meet the patient’s physical, emotional, spiritual, and social needs by focusing on the comfort of the patient during recovery or while receiving treatment.

Palliative care is given alongside with other kinds of care, to provide the patient with comfort during treatment, follow-up, and/or at the end of life.

What Is Hospice Care?

Hospice care is a program that helps people with terminal illnesses deal with pain and feel better at the end of their lives. 

When you choose hospice care, you and your family are deciding that quality of life is the most important thing. People often make this choice when they no longer want to pursue a curative path to their health condition or disease.

At a certain point, a severe sickness may not be curable, or the patient may choose not to undergo other therapies or treatments. Hospice is made for situations like this. 

Hospice care, like palliative care, provides comfort and support because one has chosen to stop treating the illness and is now focusing on their quality of life. Hospice care is given to people who have a terminal illness and usually have less than six months to live.

Who Can Benefit From Hospice and Palliative Care?

Palliative Care

Palliative care can be administered to people with many different types of illnesses, surgeries, or health conditions. Palliative care can help at any stage of a person’s illness or situation, but it’s best to start as soon as possible after a diagnosis. It is best to incorporate palliative care regularly with treatment plans.

Hospice Care

Hospice is for anyone who has adjusted their goals from quantity of life to quality of life. People aging in place at home as well as in assisted living or skilled nursing facilities can benefit from hospice care.

Hospice vs. Palliative Care Eligibility

For a patient to be eligible for hospice, two doctors must confirm that if the disease goes as it usually does, the person has less than six months to live.

Palliative care can start at any time, at any stage of illness and should be incorporated into a patient’s regular treatment plans.

Hospice and Palliative Care Teams

Hospice and palliative care are both given by multidisciplinary teams that focus on a patient’s physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. Hospice and palliative care teams come along side you to understand your goals during your current health journey and work with you to help achieve those goals.

Paying for Hospice vs. Palliative Care

Hospice and palliative care, including most medications and medical equipment, is covered by Medicare, VA benefits like TRICARE, Medicaid, and many private insurance policies. With these benefits, patients and their families can get the end-of-life care they need without having to pay a lot of excess bills.

Please consult with your primary care physician and insurance provider if you want to learn more about your options with hospice and palliative services. We are always available to help educate you on what types of questions to ask or how to start the conversation. Contact us directly if you are in the Oklahoma or North Texas area or search for “in-home hospice care near me” for a local agency.

Where Can I Receive Hospice or Palliative Care?

Hospice Care

Hospice doesn’t have to happen in a certain place. Hospice care may be administered either in the patient’s own home or in a facility like a nursing home, retirement center, or assisted living communities.

Palliative Care

Palliative care can be given in hospitals, nursing homes, outpatient palliative care clinics, some other specialized clinics or even at home. When finding a provider, ask if palliative care is offered as a separate service or if it is incorporated into their Home Health or Hospice Care plans.

For example, if you are looking for hospice care in Plano, Texas, Centric Home Health and Hospice will travel to you or a loved one wherever they call home and incorporate palliative care aspects into their normal services. View our full-service area here.

Why Should I Pick Centric Health?

At Centric Health, we think that everyone should be able to get great medical care in the comfort of their own home. We center our focus on your health journey goals and work hard to help make those happen.

When you choose Centric Hospice, you are choosing quality of life over curative treatment. If you are interested in finding out more, please don’t hesitate to contact us today. Call us at 1.855.942.3687 to speak with our information specialists.