Hospices in Your Community

Although most people die in hospitals, people are increasingly turning to hospices as a context in which to die.
Is this happening in your community? Find out by determining whether there are any hospices there. These may
be located within hospitals or adjacent to them, or they may be found in nursing homes or nursing care centers.
Once you have selected a hospice, learn as much as you can about it. One line of inquiry is to look at social
policy that affects the hospice. For example, hospitals cannot be reimbursed for providing long-term care for
dying patients.
Thus, important questions to ask concern the impact of Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance payments.
Questions to ask are listed below. Summarize your findings in a brief paper in which you answer at least these
questions. Also, comment on how well what you learned coincides with what Santrock (2021) reports about
attitudes toward death in the United States. Determine how well the hospice or hospices you located implement
what we know about how well people cope with their own or other individuals’ deaths.
Questions:

1. What is the nature of the group that runs the hospice?
2. How does the hospice serve the needs of the dying person and the person’s family?
3. Does the hospice do anything to teach the meaning of death to the person who is dying and people who
   are close to that person?
4. What services does the hospice provide for the survivors?
5. How does this relate to who can afford hospice care?
6. Who uses the service?
7. What type of hospice care would local groups provide if the governmental policy and financial
   constraints did not limit them?
8. How would you feel about spending your final days in this hospice?