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Hospice Care in Arizona
Hospice care focuses on maintaining the comfort and well-being of patients nearing the end of life. The physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of the patient and their family is our care team's priority.
Hospice care focuses on maintaining the comfort and well-being of patients nearing the end of life. The physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of the patient and their family is our care team's priority.
What is Hospice Care?
Sage Hospice in AZ is dedicated to ensuring the patient’s last few months, weeks, or days are lived in comfort and dignity.
Hospice care is a special kind of care that focuses on the quality of life for people and their caregivers who are experiencing advanced, life-limiting illnesses. Hospice care provides compassionate care for people in the last phases of incurable disease so that they may live as fully and comfortably as possible.
Hospice at home services include:
- Time and services of the care team, including visits to the patient’s location by the hospice physician, nurse, medical social worker, home health aide, and chaplain/spiritual adviser
- Medication for symptom control or pain relief
- Medical equipment like wheelchairs or walkers and medical supplies like bandages and catheters
- Physical and occupational therapy
- Speech-language pathology services
- Dietary counseling
- Any other Medicare-covered services needed to manage pain and other symptoms related to the terminal illness, as recommended by the hospice team.
- Short-term inpatient care (e.g., when adequate pain and symptom management cannot be achieved in the home setting)
- Short-term respite care (e.g., temporary relief from caregiving to avoid or address “caregiver burnout”)
- Grief and loss counseling for the patient and loved ones
Frequently Asked Questions
About Hospice Care
If you or a loved one are considering at home hospice care, you likely have many questions. Here are some frequently asked questions about hospice care to help you better understand what it entails and how it can benefit you or your loved one.
When Is It Time For Hospice?
When the burden of treatment outweighs the benefits and/or the patient has experienced notable decline and multiple hospitalizations over the last several months, he or she might be ready for hospice. Other indications include:
- Repeat trips to the emergency room (ER)
- Unrelieved pain
- Frequent infections
- Sudden or progressive decline in physical functioning and eating
- Weight loss/difficulty swallowing
- Shortness of breath/oxygen dependence
What Are The Qualifications For Hospice Care?
A patient is eligible to receive hospice services when their illness is terminal. A physician determines the patient’s life expectancy is six months or less if the disease runs its ordinary course. In addition, the patient must meet Medicare’s disease-specific criteria.
Is Hospice Only For People Who Are Dying?
Hospice is for people who have a limited life expectancy and patients whose condition is such that a doctor would not be surprised if the patient died within the next six months. This doesn’t mean the patient will die in the next six months; it simply means that he or she has a condition that makes passing a realistic possibility.
Does Choosing Hospice Care Mean Giving Up?
When treatment options for a disease have been exhausted or are no longer working, hospice provides a way for people to live in comfort, peace, and dignity without curative care. Hospice isn’t about giving up, but about improving the quality of a patient’s life by being free of pain, surrounded by family, and in the comfort of their home.
Hospice Care During COVID-19?
Finding care in assisted living facilities, nursing homes, or hospitals may be more complicated during COVID-19. However, these facilities may continue to update their services and policies to comply with state departments of health and CDC guidelines to protect the health and safety of people receiving care and the staff providing care. Learn more from CDC.
If you have questions or concerns about these uncertain times, one of Sage’s social workers or care managers will be glad to assist you by calling (480) 777-5117.
What Is The First Step To Begin Hospice Care?
Anyone can request a hospice evaluation at no cost. A physician may make the referral or provide several options and let the patient/family decide. The physician must certify to the hospice provider that the patient is eligible and has a prognosis of six months or less.
When a referral is made, the hospice provider makes an appointment (the same day or on a convenient date) to meet with the patient and family. The admissions nurse evaluates the patient, answers the family member’s questions, and creates a plan of care that reflects the patient/family’s wishes. If the discussion goes well and the family is ready, they sign admission paperwork, and the hospice team begins to visit.
How Often Does The Hospice Staff Visit?
The hospice nurse creates a plan of care with the patient’s and family’s input designed to meet the patient’s needs and determines the frequency of visits by the hospice staff. A hospice nurse can make additional visits if needed, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Once A Patient Begins Hospice Care, Can They Leave The Program?
A person may withdraw from the hospice program for various reasons, such as resuming aggressive, curative treatment or pursuing experimental measures. Also, patients often improve with hospice services because the focus of their care shifts to comfort, pain relief, symptom management, and quality of life. They still have a terminal illness, but their symptoms are so improved that they no longer qualify for hospice services. A hospice must discharge a patient whose underlying disease or condition is no longer considered terminal. Patients can revoke hospice care for any reason and return at any time, as long as their doctor recertifies their eligibility.
Does Hospice Require A DNR?
While a patient is not required to sign a DNR order before being admitted to hospice, some hospice providers may ask you to sign the order. However, as long as the patient and his family understand that hospice offers palliative care rather than curative care, any Medicare-certified hospice will not ask the patient to sign the DNR order.
What Is An Advance Directive?
The term advance directive describes two types of legal documents that enable individuals to plan for and communicate their end-of-life wishes if they can no longer express informed consent. These two documents are a living will and a medical power of attorney.
Living Will: Allows an individual to document their wishes concerning medical treatments at the end of life.
Medical Power of Attorney: This allows an individual to appoint a person they trust as their healthcare agent (or surrogate decision-maker), who is authorized to make medical decisions on their behalf.
Can A Hospice Patient Go To The Hospital?
While hospice strives to manage pain and other symptoms outside of the hospital setting, the patient always has the choice to go to a hospital. The Medicare hospice benefit covers short-term general inpatient care in the hospital when a patient’s symptoms can no longer be managed in another care setting. A written agreement between the hospital and hospice provider is required, and the patient and/or family should always contact the hospice nurse before going to the hospital.
Can A Hospice Patient Go To The Doctor?
A hospice patient may continue to see their PCP. In addition, hospice physicians and team members work with the patient’s PCP to ensure their clinical and emotional needs are being met and that their care is being carried out appropriately. Their PCP chooses his or her level of participation in their care. A patient must get permission from their hospice provider to see any other physicians/specialists outside their PCP for their terminal condition.
Is A Hospice Patient Required To Be Homebound?
Unlike home health, there is no homebound rule for hospice patients. However, they are encouraged to travel outside of the home, if they are able, to promote quality of life.
If A Patient Has Home Health, Why Would They Need Hospice?
Home health care patients require skilled care and must show improvement from this care. When these goals are no longer realistic, the patient can be transferred to hospice care. In addition, home health and hospice can provide services if the home health diagnosis is unrelated to the hospice diagnosis.
If A Patient Is In A Nursing Home, Why Would They Need Hospice?
Nursing homes focus on routine daily care and rehabilitation. Nursing home patients who receive hospice services get additional, customized support determined by their plan of care, which focuses on the physical, emotional, and spiritual end-of-life needs of patients and their families.
How the Sage AZ Hospice Care Team Works
Physician, Nurse, Hospice Aide, Social Worker, Chaplain, Volunteer, and Bereavement Coordinator.
The Sage Hospice Care team is a group of specially trained healthcare professionals who ensure that a hospice patient’s last few months, weeks, or days are lived in comfort and dignity. This interdisciplinary team includes a Physician, Nurse, Hospice Aide, Social Worker, Chaplain, Volunteer, and Bereavement Coordinator.
Hospice Patient Referral Form
Sage Hospice Arizona is ready to help.
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Hospice Care and Corporate Offices:
5111 N. Scottsdale Rd, #204
Scottsdale, Arizona 85250
Contact Numbers:
(O) 480-470-4705 (24/7)
(F) 480-304-3155
Tucson Office:
4733 N 1st Ave.
Tucson, AZ 85718
Contact Numbers:
(O) 520-475-3217 (24/7)
(F) 520-475-3217
Primary and Palliative Care Office:
6380 E Thomas Road, #100
Scottsdale, Arizona 85251
Contact Numbers:
(O) 480-933-4365 (24/7)
(F) 480-498-3725