Stein Hospice provides service to everyone in need, regardless of insurance or ability to pay.
Why choose Stein Hospice?
Community
Stein Hospice is a community based not-for-profit hospice serving Erie, Huron and Ottawa counties and surrounding areas. We have a unique knowledge and understanding of the communities we serve and have relationships with many service agencies that are available to assist you.
The Stein Hospice Board of Directors is made up of members of the communities in which we serve and not by out-of-town executives.
Focus
We concentrate all of our efforts and expertise strictly on hospice and palliative care and do not dilute the quality of our services by expanding into other endeavors. Our patients and families always come first. We consider end-of-life care too personal and too important to be driven primarily by business decisions. We do what is best for our patients while acting as good stewards of our resources.
Stability
Stein hospice has been serving the community for over 25 years and has a family of professionals who live within the communities that we serve and who are passionate believers in the hospice concept.
Diversity
Stein Hospice utilizes numerous disciplines, including physicians specially trained in hospice and palliative care. With such diversity we are better able to ensure our patients get the very best in palliative care and symptom management.
Confidence
Stein Hospice strives to provide levels of personal care that exceed industry standards. By exceeding these standards Stein Hospice can give more attention and better care that result in a higher quality of life.
Flexibility
We are responsive, adaptive and creative in meeting each patient’s unique needs 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
When should I contact hospice?
Informal Hospice Questionnaire
Please check the following statements as they apply to you or your loved one to see if hospice care may be appropriate.
- I have started feeling more tired and weak.
- I experience shortness of breath, even when resting.
- I spend most of the day in bed or in a chair.
- I have noticed an increased weight loss in the past six months.
- I make frequent phone calls to my physician.
- I take medications to lessen physical pain.
- I have fallen several times in the past six months.
- I have made frequent trips to the emergency room in the past six months.
- I need help from others with important daily activities.
(bathing, dressing, eating, cooking, walking, getting out of bed)
- My doctor has told me my life expectancy is limited.
If you have checked four or more items on the questionnaire you may want to begin your research into hospice care by seeking advice from your primary physician. If you do not have a primary physician, we would be happy to refer you to one of our medical director’s.
How is Hospice paid for?
The costs of hospice care are covered by Medicare, Medicaid and most private insurance companies. Stein Hospice turns no one away for their inability to pay. Through the generous support of individuals, businesses and foundations Stein Hospice has the capability to help everyone in need regardless of their ability to pay.
Stein Hospice Covers:
- Nursing Visits to the patients home (including nursing home and assisted living facilities)
- Medical equipment and supplies related to the terminal illness
- Medications related to the terminal illness
- Short-term inpatient and respite care
- Seven day a week nursing assistant services (including assistance with activities of daily living)
- Social Workers
- Spiritual Care
- Bereavement Services
Do you need a cancer diagnosis to be eligible for hospice care?
A common misconception about hospice is that it is a service provided only to cancer patients. The fact is that we provide care to patients with any life limiting diagnosis.
Some common non-cancer diagnoses may include:
- Cardiac
- Alzheimer’s
- Parkinson’s
- Liver Disease
- COPD/Lung Disease
- Renal Failure
- Adult Failure to Thrive
- End Stage Diabetes
Is it true that you must have only six months to live to be eligible for hospice?
Another common misconception about hospice is that the use of hospice care somehow guarantees that a patient has six months or less to live. Medicare defines the hospice standards that providers and insurers must adhere to. Medicare has provided the following explanation and clarification regarding the hospice benefit eligibility guidelines.
“Generally speaking, the hospice benefit is intended primarily for use by patients whose prognosis is terminal, with six months or less life expectancy. However, the Medicare program recognizes that terminal illnesses do not have entirely predictable courses.”
“Recognizing that prognoses can be unpredictable and may change Medicare’s benefit is not limited in terms of time. Hospice care is available as long as the patient’s prognosis meets the law’s six month test. This test is a general one….based on the attending physician’s and/or Medical Director’s clinical judgment regarding the normal course of the individual’s illness. Medicare recognizes that making medical prognostications of life expectancy is not always an exact science.”
