I’ve often wondered why more families don’t call hospice when a loved one has a terminal disease — and why people who do call wait so long, often until death is just days away.
Even though more than 40 percent of American deaths now involve hospice care, many families still are trying to shoulder the burden on their own rather than turning to a proven source of help and knowledge. I’ve surmised that the reason is families’ or patients’ unwillingness to acknowledge the prospect of death, or physicians’ inability to say the h-word and refer dying patients to hospice care.
Span elaborates on the issues preventing families from taking full advantage of the care hospice offers by identifying harmful regulations and Medicare policies that actually discourage entry into hospice. She writes about the changes in medicine that render many of the old regulations, which were once sensible, antiquated. The entire article is worth reading, especially for her full endorsement of the benefits patients and families receive from hospice.
