For Health Partners - Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care

Partnering with Us Means Increased Value and Services for Your Patients

Hospice and Palliative Care Solutions for Complex, High-Acuity Patient Needs

Why Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care?

Complex Modalities

Unique care protocols that manage patients’ high-acuity symptoms in their home/preferred setting.

We are equipped to take on patients who require complex modalities—patients for whom other hospice providers may lack resources or expertise to provide the necessary care. Our ability to offer complex modalities is what sets us apart. No matter how complex or challenging your patient’s symptoms, we offer other hospice providers do not.

For Hospitals

We offer timely care transitions from acute care settings, to our Hospice Inpatient Unit, a private residence or a long-term care facility. We can support hospital discharge teams find placement in one of the many long-term care facilities we partner with. We offer terminal extubation in our Hospice Inpatient Unit. Our medical director can discuss this option for patients and families who are interested in removing mechanical ventilation.

For Physicians

If you would like to remain the Attending Provider we collaborate with you in the care of your patient. If you prefer that our hospice provider be the Attending Provider, you can trust our interdisciplinary hospice team will provide comfort and peace in their preferred setting of care.

For Long-Term Care

Our Long-Term Care facility partners count on us to palliate their resident’s symptoms and avoid transfers to acute care settings. In addition to our hospice interdisciplinary team, we have Vigil Volunteers and Companion Volunteers who can be with residents.

24/7/365 Clinical Support

Always available for hospice eligibility evaluations, referrals, care transitions, and clinical support.

Symptoms do not adhere to a 9-to-5 schedule, and neither does our hospice team. From telephonic guidance to real-time clinical support, you need a hospice provider who’s always available. Our 24/7/365 care support is what sets us apart. Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care is here for you, your patient and their family any time of day, evening or middle of the night, all year long–even on holidays and weekends.

For Hospitals

Our 24/7 availability helps avoid unnecessary 911 calls, ED visits and re-hospitalization. This keeps your institution’s quality metrics high while reducing lengths of stay and readmission rates.

For Physicians

When your patient is no longer responding to curative treatment, refer your patient 24/7 to comfort-focused hospice care and be assured they’ll receive the same level of support they’ve come to expect from you and your team.

For Long-Term Care

The 24/7/365 availability of our staff members helps maintain your organization’s reimbursement/payment stream for non-hospice services and supports your residents’ ability to age in place by bringing a range of hospice services directly to your facility.

How We Help

Explore our unique tools and services

Referrals

A simple tool to help determine if your patient is a candidate for palliative and/or hospice care.

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Hospice Eligibility Guidelines

Guidelines to determine if your patient could benefit from palliative and/or hospice care.

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Advance Care Planning

A guide for determining treatment options based on a patient’s values and beliefs.

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Education

You can turn to Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care when you need training and education for your team.

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Referrals

A simple tool to help determine if your patient is a candidate for palliative and/or hospice care.

LEARN MORE

Hospice Eligibility Guidelines

Guidelines to determine if your patient could benefit from palliative and/or hospice care.

LEARN MORE

Advance Care Planning

A guide for determining treatment options based on a patient’s values and beliefs.

LEARN MORE

Education

You can turn to Pikes Peak Hospice & Palliative Care when you need training and education for your team.

LEARN MORE

Talking to Your Patients

As a trusted healthcare professional, you can help take the mystery out of palliative care and hospice care.

Palliative Care

When you refer a patient for palliative care, consider these points:

I’m referring you to palliative care.
Palliative medicine is a specialized field of medicine focused on relieving pain and other symptoms resulting from a serious illness.
You have special needs a palliative expert can support you with. When I have a patient who needs specialized cardiac care, I send her to a cardiologist. When a patient needs specialized joint care, I send him to an orthopedist. This is the same thing.
I will still be your doctor. Just think of the palliative care team as part of our team.
If applicable: Palliative care will not affect our ongoing treatments focused on curing your disease.
At your visit, the palliative care specialist will ask you about your pain, symptoms and current treatment. I’ll send over notes so they know what you and I have been working on. They’ll talk to you about your goals and wishes and the treatment options available to you. From there, a plan will be developed. They will communicate with me regularly, we work together.

Hospice Care

When you refer a patient for hospice care, consider these points:^[i]

Start by asking the patient and family about their understanding of the patient’s medical condition. If they understand the condition is not curable, move the conversation forward with phrases such as, “We are in a different place now. Knowing this, what is most important to you?”
Once wishes are clarified, describe the types of support that would address current needs, such as frequent visits from a nurse or additional help at home. It can be helpful to describe relevant features of the service before naming it, such as “A program covered by your insurance that will cover the costs of a team of professionals and their services, including weekly home nursing, doctor or nurse practitioner visits if needed; your lung and breathing medications; and any medical equipment you may need. The team could also include a nursing assistant to help with some tasks like bathing or feeding, and a social worker to see how everyone is managing and to make sure you have all the equipment you need. The program is called “hospice.”
Explore the patient/family’s familiarity with and perceptions of hospice. Be prepared to respond to an emotional reaction to your recommendation and to then clarify misunderstandings about how the service works.
If hospice care is aligned with the patient’s needs and values, recommend hospice using language that connects back to what is important to the patient. For example, “What I heard you say is that staying in your house and avoiding time in the hospital, having the right medications to manage your symptoms, and having the best quality of life possible is most important to you now. I recommend hospice because that team can provide you with the maximum support at home. That and you are entitled to—and have paid for—the hospice benefit as Medicare beneficiaries.”
Describe the hospice benefit package, including:

No cost-sharing for patient
Full team including volunteer services
24/7 on-call support and regular nurse visits
Home-delivered supplies, medications, and equipment
Hospice supports family or other hired caregivers to take care of patients. It does not include 24-hour care in the home.

Remind patients and families that hospice care is not a one-way street; patients can change their minds and dis-enroll if their goals change, or if hospice is not meeting their needs.

[i]All content provided by the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CACP), https://www.capc.org/conversation-script-talking-to-patients-about-hospice/.

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