1. PALLIATIVE CARE & HOSPICE CARE
A Comparison to Guide Timely Referrals
Welcome and address the audience
Tracy Wodatch, RN, BSN
VP Clinical and Regulatory Services
November 2015

2. PROGRAM OBJECTIVES Define Palliative Care and Hospice Care
State the differences between Palliative Care and Hospice Care with respect to eligibility, timing, payment, location and treatment
Heighten awareness of importance in initiating conversations about goals of care, preferences, and end-of-life care
Based on Interact2 tool presented, identify appropriate patients for referral to hospice care
Review bullets

3. Palliative Care
Many people confuse palliative care and hospice, thinking they are one and the same. Although they share a similar philosophy, they are not the same.
By definition, Palliative Care focuses on relieving symptoms that are related to serious, chronic illnesses.
Palliative Care can be used at any stage of a serious illness — not just the advanced stages.

4. Hospice Care
Hospice care is Palliative Care but with a focus on serving and comforting patients and families at the end of their lives or as the illness becomes terminal.
All Hospice care is considered Palliative but not all Palliative care is Hospice.

5. Palliative and Hospice Care
Both Palliative Care and Hospice Care use an interdisciplinary team approach to focus on quality of life or "comfort care," including the active management of pain and other symptoms, as well as the psychological, social and spiritual issues often experienced with serious illness and at the end of life.

6. “Comfort Care”
Comfort care is medical care/interventions that focus on relieving symptoms and optimizing patient comfort. Comfort care generally does not seek to cure or aggressively treat illness or disease.
However, with Palliative Care, a patient may seek comfort care while still seeking treatment for the illness.

7. Palliative vs Hospice vs comfort Care
Both Palliative and Hospice Care are philosophies of care, an interdisciplinary team approach to holistic care
Comfort care is medical care or interventions not a philosophy of care

8. So…What are the differences?

9. Palliative and Hospice Care: A Comparison
Let’s consider the following criteria:
Eligibility
Timing
Payment
Location
Treatment

10. Eligibility Palliative Care:
Palliative care is for people of any age and at any stage in an illness, whether that illness is curable, chronic, or life-threatening.
If you or a loved one are suffering from symptoms of a disease or disorder, be sure to ask your current physician for a referral for a palliative care consult.

11. Eligibility Hospice Care:
Specific to the Medicare Hospice Benefit, a patient is eligible for hospice care if two physicians (usually PCP and Hospice Medical Director) determine that the patient has six months or less to live if the terminal illness runs is normal course.
Patients must be re-assessed for eligibility at regular intervals in order to meet ongoing coverage criteria, but there is no limit on the amount of time a patient can be on the hospice benefit.

12. Timing Palliative Care There are no timing restrictions.
Palliative care can be received by patients at any time, at any stage of illness whether it be terminal or not.
Should the patient’s serious illness become terminal with a prognosis of six months of less, it may be appropriate to consider a referral to hospice care.

13. Timing
Hospice Care
Now is the best time to learn more about hospice and ask questions about what to expect from hospice services.
Although end-of-life care may be difficult to discuss, it is best for family members to share their wishes long before it becomes a concern.

14. PAYMENT Palliative Care
Many insurance companies cover both Hospice and Palliative Care.
Medicare coverage for Palliative home care can be challenging as the patient must meet Medicare eligibility which includes being homebound or confined to the home.
People with a serious illness may not be homebound as they try to maintain a quality of life including socialization outside the home.

15. The Medicare Hospice Benefit is an all inclusive program which pays for:
Physician services – Hospice Medical Director works in conjunction with attending MD
Nursing care
Medical appliances and supplies
Prescription medications
Durable medical equipment
Social work services
Short-term inpatient care for pain & symptom management
Spiritual care/Interfaith Minister
Respite Care
Bereavement services:
Grief & Bereavement Counseling
Bereavement support for 12 months following the patient’s death
Private Insurance Plans most often mirror the Medicare hospice benefit.

16. What levels of Hospice Care are available?
There are 4 levels of hospice care available from Medicare Hospice Benefit because patients require different intensities of care during the course of their disease
Routine Home Care
Hospice is paid the routine home care rate for each day the patient is under care of the hospice. Routine care includes all aspects of care from nursing to home health aides regardless of volume or intensity of service.
Continuous Home Care
Continuous Care is as necessary to maintain the terminally ill individual at home (does not have to be continuous) within a 24 hour period of time. A min. of 8 hours of direct hands on care by a RN or LPN must be provided within a 24 hour period of time. Frequent medication adjustment to control symptoms in a period of a crisis.
Short Term - General Inpatient Care
Care that cannot feasibly be provided in a home setting. An acute change in patients symptoms require aggressive nursing care, intensive management of symptoms. This is usually in a skilled nursing facility or a hospital setting.
Inpatient Respite Care
Provided in a skilled nursing care facility or hospital setting. Hospice pays the facility an inpatient respite care rate for each day of which the beneficiary is in an approved inpatient facility & is receiving respite care. Payment for respite care maybe made for a max. of 5 continuous days at a time including the date of admission but not counting the day of discharge.

17. Location of Care Palliative Care
It is most common to receive Palliative Care through your physician’s office, home care services, hospitals or nursing homes.
Many Cancer Centers are now offering Palliative Care services

18. Location of Care Hospice Care
In most cases, hospice is provided in the patient’s home.
Hospice care is also provided in freestanding hospice facilities, hospitals, or nursing homes.
The hospice team provides services wherever the patient resides—such as in an assisted living, group home or nursing home.

19. Locations of Care in CT Inpatient Hospice Care in CT
3 licensed and certified inpatient hospice facilities in CT:
Danbury: Center for Comfort Care and Healing (12 beds all private rooms)
Waterbury: VITAS 12-bed unit (all private rooms) at St Mary’s Hospital
Branford: CT Hospice (54-bed, 4 bed rooms)
Hospice providers also through contract provide inpatient hospice care in nursing homes and hospitals

20. Treatment Palliative Care
Since there are no time limits on when you can receive palliative care, it acts to fill the gap for patients who want and need comfort at any stage of any disease, whether terminal or chronic. In a palliative care program, there is no expectation that life-prolonging therapies will be avoided.
It is important to note, however, that there may be exceptions.
Some hospice programs provide life-prolonging treatments, and some palliative care programs concentrate mostly on end-of-life care.
Consult your physician or care-administrator for the best service for you.

21. Treatment Hospice Care
Most hospice programs concentrate on comfort rather than cure.
By electing not to receive extensive life-prolonging treatment, hospice patients and their families can concentrate on getting the most out of the time they have left, without some of the negative side-effects that life prolonging treatments can have.
Most hospice patients can achieve a level of comfort that allows them and their families to concentrate on the emotional and practical issues of dying.
The focus of hospice care is more on the quality not the quantity of the life remaining.

22. So…why is there so much confusion?

23. It’s all in the timing and it’s sensitive…
Palliative Care isn’t offered early enough in disease process.
Palliative Care is easier to talk about than Hospice Care
Hospice Care isn’t offered early enough in terminal illness
People equate Hospice Care to “imminent death”

24. 2014 Medicare Hospice Mean Days of Care / Beneficiary
National: 69
Connecticut: 49

25. 2014 Medicare Hospice Median Days of Care / Beneficiary
National: 23
Connecticut: 14

26. 2013 Medicare Hospice Percentage of Days x LOS

27. *NEW* Advanced Care Planning CODES for 2016
CMS established two new CPT codes for physicians to document advance care planning conversations during annual check-ups
one code for the first 30 minutes
a second add-on code for additional 30 minute conversations
Effective January 1, 2016

28. New ACP Billing Codes 2016
Advance Care Planning (ACP) as an Optional Element of an Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) Identify those with serious illnesses
Effective January 1, 2016, when ACP services are provided as a part of an AWV, practitioners would report CPT code (plus add-on code for each additional 30 minutes, if applicable) for the ACP services in addition to either of the AWV codes G0438 and G0439. CPT codes and used to describe ACP are separately payable under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS).
Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) may also bill for these professional services provided on or after January 1, 2016, using type of bill 85X with revenue codes 96X, 97X, and 98X.
For full instructions, view MLN Article MM9271

29. Advanced Care Planning and Goals of Care
Advanced Care Planning Communication Guide: Overview (
The INTERACT Advance Care Planning Communication Guide is designed to assist health professionals to initiate and carry out conversations with patients and their families about goals of care and preferences throughout the disease process as well as when there has been a decline in health status.
The Guide can be useful for education, including role-playing exercises and simulation training.

30. Referral Considerations
Identifying Patients Appropriate for Hospice or Palliative (
CHF
COPD
Dementia
Cancer

31. More Obvious Considerations
Frequent Emergency Room visits and/or hospitalizations over the last 6 months
Sudden, major decline in functional status with no identified reversible causes
Primary diagnosis of metastatic cancer with chronic pain and/or poor ADL function, not on chemotherapy
Semi-comatose or comatose state with no identified reversible causes
Inability or difficulty taking oral medicines
Minimal oral intake (or receiving continuous or intermittent IV hydration)
Mottling of extremities related to poor oral intake or volume depletion

32. Early Conversations Lead to:
Informed Choice and Positive Patient Experience
Identify those with serious illnesses
Offer palliative care early concurrent with treatment
Discuss goals of care throughout illness
Document wishes and encourage patient to discuss wishes with family and all providers of care
Offer hospice as early as possible once prognosis estimated as 6 months or less

33. MOLST Pilot “Medical order for life-sustaining treatment”
MOLST pilot (April 16, 2015 to October 1, 2016)
Windham and Greater Hartford (UCONN Health Center and Hartford Healthcare)
“Medical order for life-sustaining treatment”
“… a written medical order by a physician (MD/DO), advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) or physician assistant (PA)
to effectuate a patient’s request for life-sustaining treatment
when the patient has been determined by a physician to be approaching the end stage of a serious, life limiting illness or is in a condition of advanced, chronic progressive frailty;”
Anticipate legislation to be raised to extend the pilot through October 2017 and expand pilot participation

34. Palliative Care Advisory Council
Public Act establishes a 13-member Palliative Care Advisory Council within the Department of Public Health. 
The council must (1) analyze the current state of palliative care in Connecticut and (2) advise DPH on matters related to improving palliative care and the quality of life for people with serious or chronic illnesses.
Recommendations due to DPH Commissioner by January 1, 2016

35. Presentation based on newly released “Palliative vs
Presentation based on newly released “Palliative vs. Hospice Care Info Sheet”
Thank you!