When you have a loved one who is terminally ill and hardly has a few months to live, hospice care is the best option for the person. This will ensure that your loved ones last few months are spent without pain and symptoms of the disease. However, before you opt for hospice care, there are some things that you should find out from the hospice.

Here are some questions that you should ask about hospice care.

• Make sure that you ask the hospice whether it is accredited by a recognized body. One of the foremost accrediting agencies in the US is the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization. If the hospice is accredited, you can be assured that you loved one will get good care.
• Find out whether the hospice comes under the Medicare program. The federal government demands that hospitals that come under this program should offer certain standard of care. If those standards are not met, the hospital cannot get approved for the Medicare program.
• If the state you are in imposes licenses for running a hospice, the same should also be there. It should be current and valid.
• The hospice should have written information for giving patients and their family details about the services they provide, the cost for hospice care, how payment is accepted and what systems they have in place to check malpractice.
• Find out how long the hospice has been operating and whether they would be willing to give references. Make sure that you follow up on the references to find out about their standard and level of care.
• Check whether the hospice offers just in patient care or whether your loved one can get the care at home too. If the hospice offers home hospice care, find out how you can get it and whether it is feasible for your loved one.
• Get details of the preliminary evaluation and thereafter find out how the care plan will be customized for your loved one.
• The hospice should give you the details of what rights the patient and family have when requested.
• Find out how you can admit your loved one for hospice care and whether there are any preconditions that have to be met.
• Find out how the hospice trains and supervises caregivers and what steps are in place to review the care that your loved one will receive.
• Inquire how you can make complaints if you are unhappy with the care given or the standard of care.
• Find out what kind of support the hospice offers the family after the patient dies.

These are some of the basic questions to ask about hospice care, but you can ask several more.

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