Hospice Patients Don't Get Medical Visits From Physicians, Health Experts On Last Few Days of Life: Study

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Hospice patients are often neglected by their love ones. They don't normally get visitation, mainly because their family is too busy living life outside. However, you expect them to get the best medical help or support from your trusted physicians and health experts, especially on their last two dying days.

According to a report by Medical Express, that is not exactly the case nowadays. According to a new study, the researchers discovered that many hospice patients did not get any visit from a medical expert during the last two day of their lives.

The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle and published online in JAMA Internal Medicine on Feb 8, 2016.

This disturbing revelation has should be a wakeup call for both families and doctors to make sure every patient gets the best medical attention they need until their last living breath.

According to Dr. Joan Teno, M.D., M.S., the research lead author, the result of the study made the the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to make major changes to its payment policy for hospice care in the year 2016.

Teno, who teaches medicine at University of Washington in Seattle, said that the study was conducted to analyze last two days of the patients' life to see if they were visited by their physicians during this most painful time. They found out that one in every eight dying hospice patients does not get a visit from their doctors. Blacks were also less likely to get a visit than whites, US News reported.

It is also possible that the doctors may have determined there was no need of a visit in the patient's last two days. This is certainly not the way to handle dying patients. Medical staff and doctors must be there along with the patients' family during their final days.

The professor added that families of the patients should also be educated on how to take care of their sick love ones.

"Also families need support not only in the task of being the hands-on primary caregiver, but also bearing witness to the death of a loved one," Teno said.

Doctor's visits during the critical days of the patients are essential to their survival.

"It's important that the hospice professional staff coach that family member on how to give medicines, how to move the patient, how to deal with symptoms such as agitation, or shortness of breath," the professor added.