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END OF LIFE ACTIVITY: HOSPICE CARE

Hospice Care

Genesis Gonzales

HLTHNRS 348 Healthy Aging

December 8, 2019
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END OF LIFE ACTIVITY: HOSPICE CARE
Hospice Care

When I first started thinking about what I wanted to do for this assignment I was

particularly interested in learning more about Hospice care. Hospice care is an option that

individuals with terminally ill diagnoses that have exhausted all treatment options and are

nearing the end of life. Currently I’m a volunteer at Access TLC which is an organization in

Moorpark California that is dedicated to providing patient care to hospice patents as well to other

homebound individuals. They also have a separate housing facility that patients can live at and

they are taken care of 24 hours of the day by certified nurses. I talked to my coordinator who’s in

charge of all the volunteers at Access TLC, to ask her questions about the technicalities for

individuals who want to receive hospice care.

I asked her how patients pay for it if its covered through insurance, she explained to me

that for most cases the patient’s insurance will pay for it. Medicare, Medicaid, and private

insurance but ultimately, they have options in choosing which services they would like them or

their loved ones to receive. Since volunteering there I had already known how costly Hospice

services could be, so I felt relieved that Access TLC works with individuals who are on Medi-

cal. But I had never really known much about the process of applying and paying for end of life

care. I asked my coordinator what where some of the limitations and rules of hospice care. She

explained that a limitation of hospice care is that even though the health care providers at the

facilities have medical expertise, the goal is not to cure the illness or extend the life of the patient

but rather to manage pain which includes their loved ones to gain closure as they prepare for

death.

Then we discussed what the conditions were for individuals who wish to participate in

their services and they were that patients know of the terminal condition, that they know that any
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additional medical treatment and intervention are indicated only on a supportive basis that

patients do have the right though to refuse care or treatment. Other rights they have is to receive

effective pain management medications and treatments any way that hospice care providers can

make them comfortable. Another point that my coordinator pointed out was that is troubling was

that many of the patient’s insurances and health care are now accepting them when they’re close

to passing instead of approving them for hospice care earlier in their diagnosis. Which means

that their insurances pay less since they aren’t going to be needing services or that long.

I knew this program and its services truly benefited not only the patients but their loved

ones as well. When I would go visit with my patients at their homes I could see the relief on their

loved ones faces caused by many different reasons. Such as they finally got to talk to another

person that could take their mind off their situation, they had some time to be or relieved of their

care giver duties to go spend time alone. The patient themselves if they were still able to

communicate verbally would be happy to see me knowing they were expecting me every week

and with many we became good friends. Now reflecting back, it makes me start to think about

my future not only about myself but my loved ones.

The realization that death in inevitable everyone’s only going to die one time so we all

hope for a good and peaceful one, that’s what hospice is there for to help us pass on surrounded

my loved ones and comfortably without pain. It’s hard at same time to come to terms that there’s

nothing more to be done when all treatments have been exhausted and its basically just a waiting

game. Going back to what my coordinator said that people are going into hospice at later times in

their diagnoses its really troubling to me because it means people are unnecessarily suffering

longer periods of times before being able to be comfortable. Then it’s also leaving them and their

families with less time to cope and come to accept the terms that they are going to pass, less time
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to say goodbye, less to spend with family and friends, and receiving emotional/spiritual support

much later. Overall, I’m now thinking about what I want my end of life care plan to look like if I

would want to go into hospice when I’ve been told I have a terminal illness? Will it even be an

option for me or even for some of my family member who don’t have good health insurance

plans? Yes, hospice is a great program that helps many of individuals and their family better

prepare and handle for the dying process. But their needs to be a change in the cost and

insurance’s coverage of how expensive it is to receive services. For many of us where so focused

on living for as long as we can and so is our healthcare system which I feel we should be more

focused on giving people the best quality for the life they have remaining. That services like

hospice should be just as important as lifesaving procedures and treatments.

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References

Mayo Clinic. (2019) Healthy Lifestyle End of Life. Retrieved from

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/end-of-life/in-depth/hospice-care/art-20048050

Lynch, J. (2012). Lessons from Hospice. Journal of Financial Service Professionals, 29.

Nakhoda, Z. (2010). End-of-Life Care and the Medicare Hospice Benefit: The High Cost of End-

of-Life Care. Journal of Financial Service Professionals, 24.