Physician Guide to Home Hospice Visits

The field of hospice and palliative medicine continues to grow, attracting recent graduates as well as more senior physicians looking for career changes. Unfortunately, there is little, if any, training in most residencies regarding the home hospice visit, and there are not enough fellowship-trained physicians to fill the available positions. A systematic review of the literature was made for the years 2000 to 2016 to identify articles which provided practical, clinical guidelines for the physician home hospice visit. No single article provided this needed information. Thus, the authors formulated these guidelines based on the literature and their experiences to aid the home hospice physician—as well as other providers who may work with the physician—to understand the physician’s role in the home hospice visit