Legal considerations and analysis of potential structures that a hospice might employ in setting up an entity that would provide palliative care services to patients.

In 2006, CAPC and NHPCO conducted a survey to re-assess the extent to which the hospice community is providing palliative care services to patients outside the Medicare Hospice Benefit. The data-collection was conducted to update the findings of a similar study in 2002.

Survey findings demonstrate that the percentage of respondents offering palliative care services to non-hospice patients has risen dramatically – from 26.2% in 2002 to 55.1% in 2006. The primary settings for these services are in the home (64.8%) and in a hospital (52.3%).

The Survey results are one chapter in a publication entitled: Navigating Palliative Care: Positioning Hospice for the 21st Century. This resource also includes a series of ten case studies documenting different program design models and a collection of tools and references to assist hospice providers who seek to establish and/or extend palliative care services. To order a copy of this publication, contact the NHPCO Marketplace at www.nhpco.com and go to Marketplace.

This Power Point presentation provides the following tools:
Physicians Order Sheet (Slide numbers 62 and 63)
Chart Audit (Slide number 69)
Process Audit (Slide number 70)
Palliative Care Survey (Slide number 71)
Nursing Assistant Pain Management Survey (Slide number 71)
Family Satisfaction Survey (Slide number 72)

Meier DE. When pain and suffering do not require a prognosis: working toward meaningful hospital-hospice partnership. J Pall Med. 2003;6:109-114.

Explains that there is no requirement for the hospice patient requiring continuing inpatient care to physically leave the hospital in order to begin receiving inpatient hospice services.