Hospice Services

Scheduled visits from your hospice team — nursing, aide, social worker, chaplain — to wherever you live. The most common level, used by most patients most of the time.

Routine Home Care is appropriate when symptoms are stable and the patient and family can manage day-to-day at home with scheduled team support. This is the level most hospice patients use most of the time.

Visit frequencies are individualized: typically an RN one to three times per week, an aide several times per week, and the social worker and chaplain on a schedule that fits the family's needs. Visits change as the patient changes.

Nursing presence at home during an acute symptom crisis, so the patient can stay home through a difficult stretch instead of going to the hospital.

Continuous Home Care provides nursing presence for stretches of eight or more hours within a twenty-four-hour period during an acute symptom crisis — pain that is not yet controlled, severe shortness of breath, or another situation that would otherwise lead to a hospital visit. The goal is to manage the crisis at home.

An RN (and often an LVN) stays at the home until the symptom is brought under control. Once the crisis is resolved, care returns to the Routine Home Care level.

Short-term inpatient care for symptoms that cannot be safely managed at home. Patients return home as soon as symptoms are stable.

General Inpatient Care is short-term care at a contracted facility — hospital, freestanding hospice inpatient unit, or skilled nursing facility — used when symptoms cannot be safely managed at home. Patients return home as soon as symptoms are stable.

We coordinate the transfer, communicate with the facility's clinical team, and stay involved during the inpatient stay. As soon as symptoms are managed, we coordinate the return home.

Up to five consecutive days of inpatient stay so the primary family caregiver can rest. The patient is cared for in a Medicare-certified facility; the family steps away knowing the patient is safe.

Respite Care provides up to five consecutive days of inpatient stay to give the primary family caregiver a needed break. The patient is cared for in a Medicare-certified facility; the family rests.

Respite is planned, not reactive — families schedule it in advance. We arrange the bed, the transfer, and the return home. Caregivers come back rested and the patient's care does not skip a beat.

Oversees the plan of care in partnership with the patient's attending physician. Manages complex medical needs — uncontrolled symptoms, medication adjustments, decisions that require physician sign-off. Available to the team around the clock.

The clinical lead. Conducts the initial assessment, sets up the care plan with the patient and family, and leads symptom management at every subsequent visit. Typical visit frequency is one to three times per week, with more visits during periods of change. The on-call line is answered by an RN twenty-four hours a day.

Provides bedside nursing care, comfort measures, and continuity between RN visits. Works under the RN's plan of care, with regular communication so changes the LVN sees at the bedside reach the rest of the team quickly.

Helps families navigate the parts of hospice that are not strictly medical — emotional support, family meetings, advance-directive paperwork, community-resource referrals (transportation, meal services, financial assistance), and care coordination with skilled nursing facilities. Visits on a schedule that fits the family's needs.

Offers non-denominational spiritual support honoring the patient's faith and tradition. Coordinates with the family's own clergy when that is preferred. The chaplain is available for ritual, conversation, or simply presence — whichever the family wants.

Assists with bathing, grooming, light meal preparation, and daily personal care — the day-to-day tasks that become harder as illness progresses. Visit frequency is set by the RN and tailored to the family's needs.

Our bereavement coordinator stays in touch with surviving family for thirteen months after the loss — calls, support-group resources, anniversary check-ins. Grief support is not an add-on to hospice; it is hospice.

Provides companionship, light errands, and respite presence so caregivers can step away briefly. Our volunteers complete a structured training program and are background-checked — the role is meaningful, not casual.