Developing and financing a palliative care program.
Although hospice care to assist the dying is widely available, palliative care, which focuses on living with chronic and life threatening illness and preparing the living for dying, is poorly understood. Only recently, palliative care has been mandated by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations as a necessary intervention for facilities. Defining a palliative care model for the community hospital emphasizes total care for the patient beyond the traditional medical model. No specific Medicare reimbursement exists for palliative care in hospitals, and hospital administrators are generally not supportive of programs where no reimbursement exists. Developing a model palliative care program using a cost aversion financial model to quantify benefits of a palliative care programs is one strategy to address the reimbursement shortcomings.
Global Oncology SP, Stillwater Trail, Hendersonville, Tennessee 37075, USA. patedens@globaloncology.com
Pat Stanfill
PS
Edens
Catherine D
CD
Harvey
Karen M
KM
Gilden
D054869:Clinical Audit; D005375:Financial Audit; D005381:Financing, Organized / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006764:Hospitals, Community; D006801:Humans; D007591:Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations; D008330:Management Audit; D006278:Medicare / Q000458:organization & administration; D018803:Models, Economic; D017146:Models, Organizational; D020380:Needs Assessment / Q000458:organization & administration; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011367:Professional Staff Committees / Q000458:organization & administration; D016730:Program Development / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012051:Reimbursement Mechanisms / Q000458:organization & administration; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014481:United States