Demystifying Hospice and Palliative Care
Our podcast is hosted on Spotify and Anchor.
Bridget Sumser, LCSW and Kana McKee, MD lead an interactive discussion on the important differences between hospice and palliative care and when and how to access both.
Hospice and palliative care are too often confused with each other; hospice is care given at the end of life with the goal of alleviating suffering of all kinds, while palliative care can be provided at any point along the spectrum of illness. To put it another way, all hospice care is palliative care, but not all palliative care is hospice.
Show Notes:
0:00 Introduction
2:39 Confusion around the difference between hospice and palliative care
3:30 Defining palliative care
5:38 What’s considered a serious illness? How do you know when palliative care might be appropriate?
7:30 Understanding goals and values of individuals
9:05 The team approach of palliative and hospice
10:11 How palliative care team members partner with your other clinical providers
11:40 Who is palliative care for?
14:45 How and where can you access palliative care?
17:32 Defining hospice care: what to expect
18:53 The 6-month prognosis used in hospice care
19:44 Where is hospice care delivered?
20:20 What is provided with hospice care? Services, medications and medical equipment
22:30 The philosophic focus of hospice care on managing symptoms and improving quality of life
24:16 How hospice can help keep people out of the ER and hospital
25:50 Can you ask for less interaction with the hospice team?
29:00 Are end of life options integrated into hospice care?
33:00 What happens if the hospice team is not a good fit?
33:42 Variation within end of life options, timing and location
34:40 What can be done to help people enroll in hospice sooner? How do you know when it’s the right time?
39:24 What are symptoms that indicate someone is eligible for hospice?
43:34 Does insurance cover palliative care?
45:22 What resources do hospice workers have to process their own grief?
49:16 How does the relationship between primary doctor and hospice physician/medical director work?
55:17 How does palliative care approach support someone with dementia vs. hospice care?
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