From the NIA: Palliative care is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness, such as cancer or heart failure. Patients in palliative care may receive medical care for their symptoms, or palliative care, along with treatment intended to cure their serious illness. In short, Palliative care is an ever growing area of medicine where the focus shifts from treating the disease to making patients comfortable from the symptoms and stresses of life limiting illness and injury.

Palliative care services can be engaged at time while still pursuing curative treatment. Hospice services ,on the other hand, cannot be provided in conjunction with curative and therapeutic treatment. For example,...

Palliative care is the outpatient setting is another level of care to help provide the patient with quality time while pursuing curative and therapeutic treatment. We are pleased that outpatient palliative care is starting to be more commonly covered by insurance, and this is something that everyone should aware of and ask for. Outpatient palliative care is also a service that allows for a patient to be checked on more interittently than hospice services.

Because hospice services can be used periodically, though everyone should check on their insurance coverage, it is wise to engage with hospice services sooner than later. That way, all people involved - from the patient to the caregivers - can develop deeper relationships with the hospice caregivers. These relationships are the most important, and their fine tuning create better symptom management and improved quality of time.

Hospices services include 24/7 access to a hospice provider by phone. Hospice becomes your new 911. There is not 24/7 care provided in the home. It does come with a robust intradisciplinary team.

A palliative care consultant supports families and individuals with care decisions. Whether it is about coming to consensus with family and friends who are in charge of the care, or helping you to understand and navigate the healthcare system when a loved one or someone who is important in your life has traumatic changes in their health and are in sudden need of care.

I am a palliative care Nurse Practitioner with 12 years of experience as a Palliative Care Nurse, and an additional 3 years as a palliative care mid-level provider. That means that I work with people who have had traumatic changes in their health and are in sudden need of care that their families and loved ones might or might not know how to provide. It is my life’s work to help people with these questions and support them with answers.