Looking for a hospice in Corpus Christi, Del Cielo Hospice can be the best option for your loved one. But before using any services, you need to know the levels of hospice care.
When the doctor knows the patient most likely has no more than six months to live, their family member chooses to stop trying to cure the illness and opt to receive hospice care instead.
Hospice, we can also say it’s the “comfort care” that focuses on managing pain and keeping a patient comfortable to enjoy a quality of life for the remainder of their time left.
Hospice care is defined in four distinct levels. This benefit provides services and goods to allow the patient and their family to stay together in the comfort-like home unless they need care in an inpatient facility for their terminal illness duration.
One person may experience all four levels, probably just in a week or maybe ten days of hospice services. Perhaps another person experiences one level of care throughout their hospice care. Every level of care meets specific needs, and every hospice patient is unique.
Every certified hospice care must give these four levels of care.
Level 1: Routine Home Care
Routine home care is an essential level of care in the hospice experience. It includes homebound individuals with Medicare parts A and B who are under the supervision of a doctor who has specified the needed services.
The amount, frequency, and period of the treatment must be reasonable. You have to expect improvements in a fair and predictable amount of time.
Routine home care services include the following:
- Intermittent or part-time skilled nursing services
- Occupational therapy
- Physical therapy
- Medical social services
- Speech-language pathology services
- Intermittent or part-time home health aide services
- Medical supplies for use at home
- Injectable osteoporosis drugs
- Durable medical equipment
Level 2: Continuous Home Care
Continuous home care is available during crisis times when a higher level of continuous care is needed. That is at least eight hours in 24 hours to achieve palliation or management of acute medical symptoms. A nurse must provide fifty percent of the necessary care.
Symptoms Requiring 24/7 Care
Some examples of symptoms that need continuous care would be:
- Anxiety or panic attacks
- Unrelieved pain
- Severe shortness of breath
- Severe nausea and vomiting
- A breakdown in the initial caregiver support system services
Level 3: General Inpatient Care
Most patients have short-term symptoms so severe they cannot get adequate treatment at home or feel more comfortable during the treatment at an inpatient facility.
Symptoms that require inpatient care are the same as those that need continuous care. Maybe the setting of care is different. Inpatient care means the nurses are available around the clock for treatments, administer medications, and give the patient emotional support.
Inpatient Facilities
These are some facilities that offer inpatient hospice services:
- A free-standing facility operated and owned by a hospice agency
- Hospice care offers skilled nursing facility (nursing home)
- An inpatient hospice unit within a hospital
Level 4: Respite Care
Respite care is more for the family than for the patient. If the patient does not meet the criteria to qualify them for continuous care or inpatient care, the family is having difficulty. In that case, respite care may be an option.
If a patient’s family is the only source of care and cannot meet their loved one’s needs because of caregiver stress or other extenuating circumstances. In that case, a patient may temporarily be admitted to an inpatient environment to give the family a needed break or respite.
There is a five-day limit in respite care. Once the period expires, the patient is discharged and goes back to the home.
Determine the Level of Care
To live in hospice care, the patient’s doctor, mostly the hospice doctor, must know that the patient is terminally ill, with a life of six months or less expected. The decision to treat the patients at a higher level of care falls to the hospice physician.
With four levels in place, should ever leave no terminally ill patient without the appropriate care.
Rather than choosing home care in Texas for your loved one, you can choose us as your professional team.
Our home health Corpus Christi team provides you the best care. Corpus Christi hospice professionals have years of experience in this field. You can contact us @ (361) 723-0210 for more details and mail us @andres@dctelecare.com for a direct connection.
