Palliative Home Care
314.362.0200
What is Palliative Home Care?
When a loved one is diagnosed with an advanced disease --such as cancer, end-stage cardiac disease, end-stage renal disease or any serious illness -- and he or she is ready to come home, what type of care is better -- Home Health or Hospice? Typically, Home Health provides the physical treatment required by the patient. On the other hand, Hospice care does not provide "curative" treatment but has specialized expertise in pain and symptom management.
BJC Hospice has combined the physical treatment of home health care with the pain and symptom management provided by our hospice program into our Palliative Home Care Program. This blended program gives home-bound patients with an advanced illness a third choice. With palliative home care, the patient can still be seeking a cure, but greater emphasis is put on making the patient comfortable and improving the quality of life.
Palliative home care allows for curative treatment, but brings in a staff of compassionate and skilled nurses that are experts at pain and symptom management and coordination of care for the patient and family.
Palliative home care is physician directed and features a specially trained and dedicated team. The clinical team is expert in caring for patients with complex medical diseases. The goal of palliative home care is to promote independence through education. The patient and caregiver actively participate in planning for the care and managing symptoms of the disease.
Who would benefit from palliative home care?
- Patient with a progressive or advanced disease
- Patient that is homebound
- Patient that has a skilled nursing need
- Patient with a physician order
Palliative home care is appropriate for patients with:
- Cancer
- Liver failure
- Kidney/renal disease
- Pulmonary/lung disease
- Cardiac
- Neurological disease (MS)
- Cerebrovascular disease (CVA)
- AIDS
- Arteriosclerotic heart
- Lou Gehrig’s Disease/ALS
- Multisystem failure
- Rejection of transplanted organs
Medicare and Medicaid cover the cost of supportive care services under the home health benefit when the patient meets the admission criteria. Private health insurance plans with a home health benefit will cover care under the home health benefit, if home health is a covered service and BJC is a provider.
For more information on palliative home care, visit BJC Home Care Services.