Hospice Care Services
When people face the end of life, they prefer if possible, to spend their last days at home – alert and pain fee – among the people and things they love. Visiting Nurse Service & Hospice of Suffolk is dedicated to making this possible. Hospice care emphasizes effective pain control and symptom management in combination with supportive counseling services to the entire family. All care is provided under the direction of the patient’s primary physician.
Typically, a family member or friend serves as the primary caregiver and, when appropriate, helps make decisions for the terminally ill individual. Hospice supplements the daily care provided by the primary caregiver with a team that consists of a registered nurse, physician, social worker, clergy, home health aides and volunteers, all working together to plan and coordinate care.
Members of the team make regular home visits and a nurse is on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to provide advice over the telephone and to make visits when necessary.
Hospice care can be provided in a number of settings.
Hospice care can be provided in a number of settings. Routine care is most often given in the home, but inpatient care can also be provided in either a nursing home, hospital or the Hospice House. The Hospice House, located in East Northport, NY, is VNSHS’ eight bed inpatient unit designed specifically to meet the needs of terminally ill patients and their families as they face the end of life. For patients who do not meet the criteria for inpatient care, hospices offer inpatient respite care. Respite care is employed on a limited basis when it is believed that the patient’s caregiver(s) would benefit from some rest from the daily care they provide at home.
If the patient chooses to stop hospice care, health care benefits from the standard or managed care Medicare program continue. If the terminally ill patient’s health improves, or if the patient goes into remission, their regular health care benefits will resume as well. A patient can return to hospice care at any time as long as the eligibility criteria are met and certification by the physician and hospice team is received.