Southern California
Hospice Care
Home healthcare is different from hospice care. Home healthcare medical practitioners or nurses are working actively to see improvement within a patient’s medical conditions. Services offered by home healthcare can include:
- Speech therapy
- Physical therapy
- Nutritional planning
- Pharmaceutical services
- Transportation
- Companionship
Comparatively, hospice care focuses not on the improvement of a patient’s medical conditions, but on alleviating the symptoms so as to ease their discomfort and pain through the last months of their life.
In some instances, home healthcare can be used simultaneously with hospice care, as long as the patient still meets the home health requirements for eligibility. Using both hospice and home care can help to lengthen the time in which a patient can be kept at home for treatment and care services.
However, home healthcare and hospice care are ultimately different services. The purpose of home healthcare is to reestablish a patient’s health and independence, whereas hospice care is focused more on comfort, emotional peace, and closure.
Thus, hospice care may still be needed even if a patient already has home healthcare, as the two services do not share the same overall purpose.