I KNOW WHAT hospice is: It’s one of the unintentionally best-kept secrets in this business, but we’ll get to that.

And because I’ve been ricocheting off of hospice for so long, I wasn’t at all sure that I could succinctly define it for you.

Thus, uncharacteristically, I actually looked it up.

Here’s the one I like the best:

“Hospice offers medical care toward a different goal: maintaining or improving quality of life for someone whose illness, disease or condition is unlikely to be cured. Each patient’s individualized care plan is updated as needed to address the physical, emotional and spiritual pain that accompanies terminal illness. Hospice care also offers practical support for the caregiver(s) during the illness and grief support after the death. Hospice is something more that is available to the patient and the entire family when curative measures have been exhausted and life prognosis is six months or less.”

It goes on. I won’t.

So, basically, hospice care is not about trying to cure a terminal illness — it’s about improving the quality of the life that the patient has left — and it does a remarkable job of doing that.

Obviously, there’s a huge emphasis on pain and symptom control, but hospice also helps with therapies, medical equipment, dietary counseling, etc., along with a lot of help for the resident caregiver(s)/family, and more, such as spiritual support.

Hospice is covered by Medicare, Medicaid, VA and pretty much all private insurances.

Does that impress you? It should, because it implies that hospice actually works.

And, being who I am, I’d immediately want to know: What does it take to qualify for hospice?

Well, a hospice physician and another doctor (often your own) must certify that the patient’s life expectancy is likely to be six months or less; also, the patient isn’t pursuing a cure, because hospice isn’t about a cure, remember? It’s about the quality of the life that’s left.

I know what you’re thinking, so let me say what I always say at this juncture: You will not be required to die.

In fact, it isn’t uncommon for hospice patients to rally ­— to actually get better, for a while, because hospice helps that much.

So, those six-month certifications can be extended (indefinitely) and/or a person could go off of hospice, then come back on later. Thus, no one is required to die.

The biggest mistake that terminally ill patients (and their caregivers) make is waiting too long to get on hospice. Seriously.

Folks tend to wait until too close to the end, when they could have been getting incredible help and support from hospice all along — and life could have been better. Easier. Less stressful. Less painful.

Is that understandable?

Well, sure: Many folks don’t want to admit or have to face the fact that the end is inevitable and within sight.

It’s like if we don’t acknowledge or admit this, death won’t notice us and move on to the next poor slob.

Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work that way so a lot of help and comfort is sacrificed on the altar of denial.

Is that smart? No, but it’s understandable, and it takes courage to decide that I’m more interested in the quality of the life left than I am in the quantity. And courage is not the absence of fear.

Which is also why hospice is one of the unintentionally best-kept secrets in this business: We don’t like to talk about death.

We don’t like to acknowledge it, admit to it or concede to it.

We want to carry on in our bubble of immortality.

I completely understand — me, too.

And I completely disagree, because I’ve seen what hospice does, over and over and over.

So, here’s a very easy (and free) way for you to get the lowdown on this secret.

This Friday, Assured Hospice of Clallam and Jefferson Counties and Discovery Memory Care are teaming up to offer a free, two-hour presentation on hospice/palliative care from 10 a.m. to noon in Olympic Medical Center’s Linkletter Room.

It will feature Dr. Paul Cunningham speaking on what diseases/conditions qualify a person for hospice and the benefits of early enrollment in hospice.

If you’ve never heard him, I can promise you useable info in understandable terms.

The program also will include panel discussions of past and current hospice families, OMC’s advance planning initiative and Veteran’s Palliative Care and Hospice.

You’ll get a break, free refreshments and be out the door by noon.

If you’ve already established your immortality, please don’t come and take up a seat.

For the rest of us, it will be a very important two hours.

________

Mark Harvey is director of Clallam/Jefferson Senior Information & Assistance, which operates through the Olympic Area Agency on Aging. He is also a member of the Community Advocates for Rural Elders partnership. He can be reached at 360-452-3221 (Port Angeles-Sequim), 360-385-2552 (Jefferson County) or 360-374-9496 (West End), or by emailing harvemb@dshs.wa.gov.