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Hospice is comfort care brought to every patient, whether in a private home, a skilled nursing facility/ nursing home, or an assisted living community. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services has defined four kinds, or “levels,” of hospice care. Each level of care meets specific needs, and every hospice patient is unique. 

Every Medicare-certified hospice provider must provide these four levels of care:

Routine Home Care

Routine home care is the basic level of hospice care provided in your home, assisted living center or skilled nursing facility/ nursing home. This level of care offers a team approach by hospice staff and your physician to provide comfort at the end-of-life. This hospice level of care includes medical social services, spiritual support, volunteer visits, bereavement counseling, medication, equipment and all supplies related to your loved one’s hospice diagnosis.

Hospice Care 

Our hospice care is designed to deliver patients the best quality of life possible. We understand how difficult and stressful the transition to hospice care can be for a family to endure. We offer tailored guidance and support to ensure a smooth transition for patients and family members. We address physical, spiritual and emotional needs with compassion. 

Palliative Care

If you or your loved one struggles with a terminal illness, palliative care can offer the necessary pain relief. We’ll deliver pain relief for an array of uncomfortable symptoms. This offers extra health care that is guaranteed to improve your loved one's quality of life.

Continuous Care During Crisis

This intensive care level is when your hospice nurse stays in your home for an extended period if your loved one is experiencing a medical crisis and severe symptoms such as unrelieved pain or shortness of breath. The purpose of continuous home care is to achieve palliation and management of acute medical symptoms. Ongoing home care is only furnished during brief periods of crisis and only as necessary to maintain the terminally ill patient at home. 

General Inpatient Hospice

Sometimes, severe pain or other symptoms require an advanced level of care that is more effectively provided during a short stay in an inpatient hospice facility. If your loved one’s needs intensify, the hospice team may recommend this level of hospice care. The goal of general inpatient hospice care is to control severe pain and symptoms so that your loved one can return home to their family and familiar surroundings, if possible, and resume routine hospice care at home.

Short-term general inpatient care is for pain and symptom management that can not be accomplished in the home setting. This care must be in a Medicare‑approved facility, like a hospice facility, hospital, or skilled nursing facility that contracts with the hospice.

Respite Care 

The respite level of hospice care is provided on an occasional basis. It offers a planned, short-term break for unpaid family caregivers from the challenges of assisting a loved one with an advanced illness. It can only be provided at a Medicare-certified inpatient hospice facility, hospital or skilled nursing facility that can give around–the–clock nursing care should your loved one’s plan of care require 24-hour care. Please speak to your Comforting Hands Hospice nurse about the respite level of care. You can stay up to five days each time you receive respite care.