Glossary

Here are some terms you might hear when discussing hospice care.

Board Certified
A physician who has completed an approved residency, passed an examination given by a medical specialty board, and who has been certified as a specialist in that medical area.

Bereavement
The act of grieving a person's death.

Caregiver
A person who helps care for someone who is ill, disabled, or aged. Some caregivers are relatives or friends who volunteer their help. Some people provide caregiving services for a cost.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
The federal agency responsible for administering Medicare and overseeing states' administration of Medicaid.

End of Life Care
See Palliative Care.

End of Life Signs
Certain signs and symptoms signal that a person is nearing death. These include drowsiness, confusion, decreased socialization and withdrawal, decreased need for food and fluids, loss of bladder or bowel control, dark urine or a decreased amount of urine, skin becoming cool to the touch, rattling or gurgling sounds while breathing, involuntary movements, changes in heart rate, and loss of reflexes in the arms and legs.

Facility
A physical location where health care/services are provided, such as a hospital, clinic, emergency room or ambulatory care center.

Grieving
Grieving is the response to losing someone or something important. It is a normal reaction. A person can experience grief over many kinds of loss, from death and divorce to the loss of a job or one's good health due to illness.

Hospice
A facility or program engaged in providing palliative and supportive care of the terminally ill, and licensed, certified or otherwise authorized according to the law of jurisdiction in which services are received.

Impairment
Any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function (e.g., hearing loss).

Long-Term Care
Assistance and care for people with chronic disabilities. Long-term care's goal is to help people with disabilities live as independently as possible. It is focused more on caring than on curing. A person needs long-term care when he or she requires help with the activities of daily living (ADLs) or who suffers from cognitive impairment.

Medicaid
A federal program administered and operated individually by active state and territorial governments that provides medical benefits to eligible low-income people needing health care. The federal and state government share the program's costs.

Medicare
A nationwide, federally administered health insurance program that covers the costs of hospitalization, medical care, and some related services for eligible people, principally individuals age 65 and older and disabled individuals under age 65.

Medicare Beneficiary
A person designated by the Social Security Administration as entitled to receive Medicare benefits.

Medicare Part A
The Medicare portion that covers expenses incurred in hospitals, extended care facilities, hospices, etc.

Medicare Part B
The Medicare portion that covers physicians' services and other types of care not covered under Part A.

Palliative Care
The goal of palliative care is to anticipate, prevent and relieve suffering and symptoms—regardless of the stage of a disease—and to enhance a patient's quality of life.

Qualified Medicare Beneficiary (QMB)
A person whose income falls below 100% of federal poverty guidelines, for whom the state must pay the Medicare Part B premiums, deductibles and co-payments.

Respite Care
Care provided to the patient, when necessary, to relieve the caregiver of his or her caregiving responsibilities for short periods of time, when the caregiver needs to be out of town or while the primary caregiver is ill. Respite care is short-term inpatient care and is reimbursed for care given up to five consecutive days at a time.

Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF)
A facility, either freestanding or part of a hospital, that accepts patients in need of rehabilitation and medical care that is of a lesser intensity than that received in a hospital.

Terminally Ill
A person whose life expectancy is estimated to be six months or less.