Home Health & Hospice Week

If you're providing hospice services, then you must also offer bereavement services. Unfortunately, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services doesn't give you much guidance as to what that means -- or how to afford it.

But before you throw your hands up at yet another requirement, consider the benefits that comprehensive hospice-provided bereavement care can provide to the grieving, says Theo Munson, manager of bereavement services for Lifetime Care/Hospice in Rochester, N.Y.

Munson suggests you round out your care program with these best practices:

-- Follow-up when professional home visitors predict that the primary caregiver will have a challenging bereavement course.

-- Check in with family members because you can't always predict how grief will unfold.

-- Convey the message that the patient, family, and staff went through a major event together and that the loss matters to the provider.

-- Remind family members that they don't have to handle their grief alone -- that bereavement care is a choice they have at no expense.

-- Track down answers to nagging questions and address concerns of the bereaved.

-- Educate about symptoms of normal and complicated grief.

-- Prevent and treat post-traumatic stress disorder, isolation, numbing, bitterness, and physical symptoms.

-- Give printed materials and information about resources to turn to when the time is right.

-- Collaborate with administrators to address dissatisfaction with hospice care events.

- Provide supportive counseling to people who wouldn't ordinarily have access to mental health services.

-- Supplement the work of other professional caregivers in your community.

-- Support hospice staff by debriefing them after challenging experiences as well as "picking up the baton" so that the rest of the team feels better about going on to new families and new attachments, Munson says.