Hospice at Visiting Nurse Services of Newport & Bristol Counties is an independent, non-profit hospice program that provides comfort and care to people in Adamsville, Barrington, Bristol, Jamestown, Little Compton, Middletown, Newport, Portsmouth, Prudence Island, Tiverton, and Warren, RI.

We have been providing hospice care for nearly 20 years and believe that quality of life is as important as length of life.

What is Palliative Care?
Palliative care is provided to patients with life-threatening illnesses who may not ready to end active treatment. Patients may be receiving treatment but would also greatly benefit from our support. (top)

What is Hospice Care?
Hospice care is provided to patients who have advanced diseases that are considered incurable. Hospice care is about living each day to its fullest and helps to make a patient’s last months and days as comfortable and fulfilling as possible.
Hospice is a philosophy, not a place. Care is provided in the familiar surroundings of home or home-like setting. Care can also be provided in a long-term care setting or a hospital. (top)

Who Provides Hospice Care?
In addition to their own physician, Hospice patients and their loved ones receive services from our team of professionals:

• Hospice medical director
  
• Registered nurses who specialize in Hospice care
  
• Medical social workers who specialize in Hospice care
  
• Hospice chaplain
  
• Home health aides trained in Hospice Registered dietitians
  
• Physical therapists
  
• Occupational therapists
  
• Speech/language therapists
  
• Volunteers, specially trained in hospice, who visit patients and loved ones to provide comfort and support

Hospice nurses are available 24/7. (top)

What Services are Provided?
Our services include:

• Pain and symptom management
  
• Emotional and spiritual support for patient and loved
  ones
  
• Personal care such as bathing, cleaning, grooming, and
  helping patients to sit up and move around.
  
• Respite for family caregivers
  
• Medications, equipment and supplies related to hospice
  diagnosis (covered 100%)
  
• Companionship and friendship
  
• 13 months of bereavement support for loved ones (top)

What makes our Hospice Special?

• Our Hospice team focuses on a patient's physical, emotional and spiritual comfort. We also provide relief to emotionally stressed loved ones. Our goal is for the patient and family to spend their remaining days with comfort and dignity.
• Our Hospice staff visit regularly and are available to answer questions and provide support. We help prepare family and friends for the loss of a loved one, and help them deal with their grief through bereavement support groups. (top)

Who is Eligible for Hospice?
Patients are eligible for our hospice services if they:

• Live in Newport or Bristol Counties, Rhode Island
• Have a diagnosis with a life expectancy of 6 months or fewer, if the disease runs its usual course. If a patient outlives a 6-month prognosis, hospice care may be recertified for 60-day periods.
• Find aggressive treatments are not working or providing relief.
• Agree, along with family and physician, that the goal is comfort not cure.

Our patients include people with any serious, progressive disease, such as cancer, congestive heart failure, emphysema, renal failure, end-stage dementia and neurological diseases such as Parkinson's and ALS.

If a patient's condition improves, he or she can be discharged from hospice and return to treatment or resume daily life. If the patient later returns to hospice care, Medicare and most insurance programs will allow additional coverage.

Patients who decide that they want aggressive therapeutic treatment while on hospice care may revoke hospice services at any time. (top)

Hospice Care in Nursing Homes and Hospitals
Hospice at Visiting Nurse Services of Newport & Bristol Counties works closely with nursing homes and hospitals to assure quality of life and superior comfort for patients. Working with staff at nursing homes and hospitals, we focus on comfort and honor personal choices for end-of-life care. (top)

Paying for Hospice Care
Hospice care is covered by most insurers, including Medicare, Medicaid, and most private insurers and HMOs. Our staff will work with your insurance company to coordinate benefits. Most policies cover all costs of hospice care; some may require a co-pay for prescriptions. (top)

How can Patients be Admitted to Hospice?
Calls about hospice services may be made by a patient, relative, friend, physician, or other healthcare professional. We will ask for general information and for permission to contact the patient's physician to make sure that hospice care is appropriate. We will also offer to visit with the patient and loved ones to explain our hospice services.(top)

Our Hospice Promise
Our promise is a focus on comfort - a promise to patients when choices seem few and when the patient and family situation is most fragile.

If you are struggling with whether or not to have hospice care or want information about hospice, please call our Hospice Manager at 401-682-2100, ext. 612 or 1-800-456-1195, ext. 612. (top)