Hospice Care

At Ascend, we understand how difficult conversations about hospice can be. So, we’ve developed talking points to help ease the conversation between you, patients and family members.

Your patients and their families will in all likelihood be unfamiliar with hospice care and be unaware of the breadth of support we can bring to improve their quality of life. It is better to initiate this kind of discussion as soon as possible. We frequently hear from our patients and families that they wish they had initiated hospice care sooner.

We hope you find these guidelines helpful.

Ways To Prompt The Conversation:

• “How do you feel you are coping with your illness?”
• “What are you hoping for from this point forward? What’s important to you?”
• If a patient is unable to participate in the conversation but a family member is, ask them what the patient (by name) would say?

• Restate their responses to confirm that you understand. For example: What I hear you saying is that you want to have your pain controlled, and feel good enough to spend time with your daughter…
• Reflect on a recent circumstance. “Your last stay in the hospital seemed hard for you, there may be a way to avoid another one in the future.”
• Cues to explore hospice as an option are comments about wanting fewer trips to the hospital, just wanting to be comfortable, or wanting to enjoy what is important to them.
• Suggest that creating a care plan based on their goals would be possible and would help them achieve their goals.

Key Points To Make

• Reinforce your team will not abandon them and will remain actively involved in their care.
• Hospice care provides ‘an extra layer of support.’
• Explain that hospice is not giving up on care, it’s a change in the focus of care — moving away from restorative care to a comfort-directed path.
• Communicate that the goal of hospice care is to maximize their quality of life, and it does that by providing the best possible pain and symptom management and practical support.
• Emphasize that hospice care not only helps with symptom management, but it also helps them and their family with emotional and spiritual support.
• You don’t have to be ready for hospice. No one expects you to be ready. Having a conversation with Ascend, our hospice partner, helps you understand your options and the additional support you can gain.
• Many people think that hospice care is for the last few days of life when, in fact, patients can receive it much earlier. In customer satisfaction surveys, many families said they wished they had known about hospice sooner.
• Receiving hospice care may help you avoid frequent trips to the hospital.
• When you choose hospice care you are opting for comfort measures that support both you and your family.

How To End The Conversation

• End the conversation by gently offering to help them gain more information.
• Stress that having another conversation is not making a choice, it’s simply gaining more information.
• Medicare may cover services to help you cope with your illness. May I have someone from Ascend hospice come speak with you?