Ideally, patients get into hospice a few months before they die to actually benefit from the service. The Nazis(CMS) have our administrators and physicians so cowered, they are reluctant to admit anyone who isn’t almost actively dying. This makes it difficult to manage efficiently making hospices go broke (and we are non-profit but if you can’t pay the bills you can’t survive)
Really frustrating professionally, I don’t think there is anything wrong with admitting someone, adjusting their medications, improving their state of health and discharging them which can and does happen with end stage cardiac, pulmonary and kidney conditions. A little morphine which was the drug of choice for these conditions for centuries can make a big difference at the end of the road. Sometimes more than a year of good quality time.
I was terminal from point of DX. I will choke or smother to death without the morphine. I cannot imagine my Christin based hospice allowing this to happen.
I have been on home hospice for 9 months. My DX is Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis.
I have 2 patients that are on with us going on 3 YEARS! We got them stabilized and they continue to decline, continue to have < 6 moth prognosis.... but because they are cared for so well, they get some longevity as well as quality of life.