Home-Based Palliative Care Gaining Popularity

Realizing that seriously ill patients often do better when they can stay in their own homes and receive coordinated and personalized treatment, growing numbers of health plans, physicians and medical facilities are offering home-based palliative care to their patients. The results of home-based palliative care can benefit patients and their caregivers and are cost-effective for the health care system, according to experts.

The Hill Physicians Medical Group in San Ramon, Calif., has partnered with Blue Shield of California and Snowline Hospice on a home-based pre-hospice plan, which they say has numerous benefits.

“When people have a serious illness, they and their families often have a host of questions and needs that are best addressed by an interdisciplinary team,” says Terry Hill, vice president for performance strategy at Hill Physicians. “There’s a world of difference between trying to identify those questions and needs in a physician’s office versus at home, where the patient and family feel more in charge and the clinicians can take in the whole picture.” Click here to read the full story.