Benefits of Hospice Care

Gene Lovelace is a NET caregiver and spent 25 years working as a hospice chaplain. Here he shares his thoughts about choosing hospice care and sharing its benefits:

"So when is it time to ask a local hospice to get involved in your care? I have never had a patient or family say,“We really got hospice involved a little too early.“ What I’ve heard many families and patients tell me was that they sure wished they had invited hospice into their lives sooner.

“There are many reasons patients delay moving to hospice care, but the biggest reason is that they may not fully understand the benefits. Many times a patient or family member thinks of hospice as the last thing we can do in the final days of our life. Inviting hospice to get involved may invoke feelings of giving up or not fighting this illness that has so seriously changed their world. However, hospice care is not about giving up; it is about shifting our focus from exhaustive treatment regimens to catching our breath, taking stock of where we are, and trying to have as many good and pain-free days as possible.

“Most patients who begin hospice care are simply exhausted and so are their family members. Treatments, surgery, hospitalization, not getting adequate sleep or nutrition, and the stresses of illness take their toll on everyone. So what happens if you stop the aggressive treatments you have been taking to try to beat this illness? It varies based on your particular diagnosis and stage in the illness. Hospice care does not provide curative treatments. Yet, hospice patients tend to live better days and even more days. Since 1983 in the U.S we have had a Medicare Hospice Benefit which has given us almost 40 years of insurance reimbursement and data related to end of life care. An article several years ago in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management showed that hospice care produced 29 more days than non-hospice cancer care for five specific cancers. Hospice care heart patients actually lived 88 days longer than those without hospice involved. And if hospice does not work out for you or meet your current needs, you can return to the care plan you were on before hospice began."