My mother qualifies for hospice care and we are in the application process. She also has macular degeneration and injections every 6 weeks have allowed her to continue to read. Would we need to discontinue these injections (she qualified for hospital based on other diagnoses)?
I only have experience with one hospice but patients could still go to the ER if for example a feeding tube came out. Yes we did not discontinue those if the patient was not close to death and rejecting the feeds. In ten years I only saw two patients with IVs continued and that was for the purpose of pain medication.
Patients are also admitted to hospital for emergency reasons i.e. a caregiver breaks a leg, power outage or floods! and when actively dying when the family does not want others to see a difficult death, i.e. young children.
In our hospice we had arrangements with the local hospital to always find a bed and the patient was admitted under their own Dr, direct admission with no ER visit. Respite care was either hospital or local NH, no choice admitted where there was a free bed. I believe we would have allowed the injections for macular degeneration to continue but not cover the cost or transport the patient unless there was a volunteer available. We also had dentists, optometrists, PT and dietitians visit the homes. Even hairdressers as volunteers.
This is a very variable subject and different hospices have their own policies and the ability to pay for some of the services medicare /medicaid does not cover
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