Care that meets the moment.
Medicare defines four levels of hospice care. A patient moves between them as symptoms change, and moves back again when things settle. You are never locked into one.
Routine Home Care
The level nearly everyone starts at, and the level most people stay at. The team comes to the patient on a regular schedule, and a nurse is reachable around the clock in between.
- Scheduled nurse and aide visits, set by the plan of care
- Social worker and chaplain visits as the family wants them
- Medication, equipment and supplies related to the illness, delivered
- A nurse on call overnight, on weekends and on holidays
Continuous Home Care
For a short crisis, when symptoms will not settle. Nursing care goes hour by hour, in the home, until things are calm again. It is a temporary level, not a permanent one.
- Mainly nursing care, at least eight hours in a twenty-four hour day
- Used for severe pain, breathlessness, agitation or uncontrolled symptoms
- The goal is always to get back to routine home care
- It keeps the patient home instead of in an emergency room
General Inpatient Care
When symptoms cannot be managed at home, care can move for a short time to a contracted hospital or nursing home where round-the-clock nursing is available. Our team stays involved throughout, and the patient comes home as soon as they are comfortable.
- Short term, for symptoms that need close nursing management
- Provided in a contracted hospital or nursing home, not a United Hospice building
- Our nurses, social worker and chaplain keep visiting
- The aim is to return home as soon as symptoms allow
Respite Care
Caregiving is relentless, and exhaustion is not a failing. Respite care gives the family up to five days of rest while the patient is cared for in a contracted facility.
- Up to five consecutive days at a time
- For the caregiver's rest, a family event, or simple exhaustion
- The patient is cared for by staff we work with, under the same plan
- Covered by the Medicare hospice benefit, like the other levels
A note on where care happens.
United Hospice has no building of its own. Our team travels to wherever the patient lives. When a level of care calls for a hospital or a nursing home, that is a place we contract with and visit, never a place we ask a family to come to us.
All four levels are covered.
Every one of these levels is part of the Medicare hospice benefit, and most private plans and Medicaid follow the same structure. Moving between levels does not change what a family pays.
Symptoms changing? Call us before it becomes a crisis.
A nurse can reach you tonight. That is what the on-call line is for.