The Different Levels of Hospice Care

Hospice is a complete, holistic program aimed at providing care and support for patients with a terminal illness and their families. It focuses on providing comfort care to relieve pain and manage symptoms instead of providing care to cure the patient’s disease. Normally, hospice agencies are paid by Medicare a daily rate for all the days a patient is registered in the hospice benefit. Medicare calculates daily payments no matter how many services are given on a particular day, which includes the days when the hospice doesn’t provide any services. What are included in these daily payment rates are the expenses for the services provided by hospice agencies, like the hospice care in Burbank, California, that is included in patients’ care plans. Medicare makes these daily payments according to 1 of 4 levels of hospice care:

• Regular home care
  It refers to a day when the patient decides to receive hospice care at their residence and isn’t receiving continuous home care. What can be considered a patient’s home are: a home, an assisted living facility, or a skilled nursing facility. Routine home care is given to patients who aren’t in crisis.
• Continuous home care
  Continuous home care refers to the day when the patient receives hospice care in a home setting that’s not considered an inpatient facility, such as a hospital, skilled nursing facility, or hospice care inpatient unit. It also refers to the day when the care provided at home is mainly comprised of nursing care continuously.
• Inpatient respite care
  Inpatient respite care is the day the patients choose to receive hospice care from an approved inpatient facility providing hospice and palliative care for up to a maximum of 5 successive days to provide their respective caregiver a rest.
• General inpatient care
  This refers to the day the patient opts to receive hospice care in a particular inpatient facility to control pain or manage acute or chronic symptoms which cannot be managed in other settings.

At Bonum Hospice Services, you or a loved one can avail of the best-quality hospice services delivered by our highly proficient healthcare team. We also provide palliative services in California. Feel free to contact us for more information.