Hospice may no longer mean halting treatment

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Hospice may no longer mean halting treatment

Postby Guest » Sat May 15, 2010 9:10 pm

The rest of the article is contained in the link below. I saw this today on the MSNBC homepage.

Hospice may no longer mean halting treatment

Law may let Medicare patients have end-of-life care plus still fight illness

By Jordan Rau

updated 4:49 p.m. ET, Fri., May 14, 2010

After an excruciating bout of chemotherapy, Linda Meisenhelder gave up fighting colon cancer and last fall entered end-of-life hospice care. She was willing to quit curative treatments — a requirement for Medicare to pay for hospice — but says no one else in her cancer support group seemed ready to take that step.

"They were all very clear in saying that they would do chemo again in a heartbeat," says Meisenhelder, who lives in Harleysville, Pa. "Hospice has a lot to offer but it can be scary when they hear what they have to give up."

This dilemma — that you must give up aggressive treatment to get end-of-life counseling and care — is a major reason many people resist entering hospice, sometimes until just days before they die.

But the new health law could lead to a major change in Medicare policy that allows patients to get treatment and hospice care simultaneously.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37138739/ns ... alth_care/

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