What is a Hospice? 

❖    Hospice care provides comfort and symptom management to those persons nearing the end oflife's journey.
❖    Hospice will help with decisions about how you want to spend your time and where you would like to stay for the remainder of your life.
❖    Hospice is a special kind of caring.

Why Hospice? 

❖    Hospice treats you, not the disease. The focus is on care, not cure. You and your family's medical social, emotional, and spiritual needs are addressed by a team of Hospice professionals and Volunteers.
❖    Hospice considers your entire family as the "Unit of Care". Your family is also included in the decision-making process unless you have other wishes on who is a part of your life.
❖    Hospice will help you and your family consider choices about end-of-life issues and enables you to have a greater control over these choices. Bereavement counseling is provided to your family for at least one year after your death.
❖    Hospice offers palliative, rather than curative treatment. We will provide care and comfort when cure is no longer an option. Through ever advancing technology, pain, and symptom control will enable you to live as fully and comfortably as possible. Hospice emphasizes quality rather than length of time. Hospice neither hastens nor postpones your death. It affirms life and regards dying as a normal process. 


Can a Hospice Service make a Difference? 

Hospice care provides comfort and kindness to people nearing the end of life's journey. Hospice will help you make decisions about how and where you want to spend the rest of your life. Hospice care is provided by an interdisciplinary team of professionals in partnership with your primary care physician. Family and significant others are encouraged to be part of the care team. Counseling and Spiritual support are available to the patient as well as to the family members. 

Who Provides Care? 

Hospice services include those of Nursing, Medical Social Services, Therapy Services, Spiritual Counseling, Home Health Aide, Nutrition Support, Volunteer Services and Bereavement. All services are provided under the direction of a physician and/or the Hospice Medical Director. 

Arrangements will be made for hospice approved medications, medical supplies, and equipment, as appropriate and only if it relates to the terminal illness.  

How is Hospice Care Started 

Help is only one phone call away. The attending physician, patient, family member, friends, clergy, social workers, hospital discharge planner, or any person concerned with a patient's well being, can make a referral. We are here to assist you for the beginning of the Hospice program, determining eligibility and Hospice admission criteria. 

Criteria for Admission

Hospice care is for people who have a life-limiting illness that possibly can transition the loved one within six months, and have chosen to focus on comfort care over aggressive treatment.

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Admission to our hospice program is made upon the recommendation of your physician and is based upon your needs. Normally, appropriate candidates for hospice are those people experiencing terminal health conditions.
 

Diagnoses commonly associated with hospice care include these and other terminal diseases:

• Heart Disease

• Respiratory Diseases

• AIDS/HIV

• Alzheimer’s/Dementia

• Liver/Renal Failure

• Neurologic Diseases

• Cancer

• Stroke or Coma

 

​Arizona Professional Hospice Care works with the patient and family to develop a customized plan of care, specific to their disease and individual needs.     

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Eligibility criteria includes:

• Frequent hospitalizations

• Progressive weight loss

• Deteriorating mental abilities

• Frequent infections

• Multiple falls in the last six months

• Treatment is more of a burden than a benefit

• Shortness of breath even while resting

• Spending most of the day in a chair or bed

• Increased medication to manage pain or symptoms

 

Needing help with:

 

• bathing

• dressing

• eating

• mobility

• getting out of bed

On admission, our nurse will visit you or your family to discuss hospice services, assess your immediate needs and recommend a plan of care. If we cannot meet your needs and provide the highest quality of care, either directly by Arizona Professional Hospice Care or indirectly through service agreements with other providers, we, in your best interest, will not admit you or continue to provide services to you. We will make every effort in attempting to help you find services that are more to your needs.

Referrals Accepted From

• Physicians
• Families
• Individuals
• Friends
• RCFE's
• SNF's
• Assisted Living Facilities
• Hospital Personnel 

Who Pays for Hospice Care
 

Hospice is covered under the Hospice Medicare Benefit, most Medicaid plans, and many private insurance plans. This means there is usually no out of pocket costs to the patient or their family. Most plans cover hospice care and the medications, medical supplies, and medical equipment related to the hospice prognosis.

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