Sister Catherine Mary Clarke, FSE, LCSW, directs the social work services of Franciscan Hospice Care. Here she explains what hospice care is, how a team of professionals and volunteers work together to serve each client, and how hospice care offers support for the family of the hospice patient.
What Is Hospice Care?
A Team of Care
Support for Family
About Hospice Care
Hospice Care is serving and comforting patients and families at the end of life or as the illness becomes terminal.
Hospice Care involves the person and his/her family as the center of care.
Hospice Care is a medical specialty caring for the whole individual through an interdisciplinary approach to the plan of care.
Hospice Care Interdisciplinary Team offers a medical, emotional, personal and spiritual approach to care in the home or nursing home and includes
- Physicians
- Nurses
- Social workers
- Pastoral care persons
- Home health aides
- Hospice volunteers
- Physical, occupational and speech therapists as needed
Hospice Care is a Medicare Hospice Benefit available for patients whose life expectancy is six months or less, as determined by their physician. Medicaid hospice coverage is the same as the Medicare benefit. Some commercial insurance companies also offer hospice care coverage.
Franciscan Hospice Care is available to anyone who:
- Receives a diagnosis of a terminal illness by a physician with a limited prognosis, generally six months
- Resides in one of the towns served by Franciscan Home Care and Hospice Care in either a private home or skilled nursing facility
- Desires a palliative approach to symptom management
