Q & A

In-hospital palliative care, offered at our UChicago Medicine AdventHealth Hinsdale and La Grange hospitals, will likely include many health professionals, including:

• Case management members
• Chaplains
• ICU and therapy teams
• Nurse practitioners

These experts collaborate to address your whole health. Using a combination of pain management techniques, mental health care and spiritual support, we’ll ensure your treatment plan helps you feel like yourself again.

Community-based palliative care, offered through UChicago Medicine AdventHealth Medical Group, will likely include health professionals such as:

• Collaborating physicians
• Nurse practitioners
• Social workers
• Triage nurses

Our community-based team sees most of their patients in their own homes across the Chicagoland area. They also care for patients in hospitals, independent living, assisted living and long-term care nursing facilities.

Understanding what services are covered by insurance, including Medicare, can feel overwhelming. Some palliative care services may be covered by certain Medicare plans. However, the best place to begin understanding your coverage is to speak to the financial assistance office at your local hospital.

UChicago Medicine AdventHealth is committed to helping you understand your insurance benefits, including what palliative care services are covered by Medicare.

Palliative care means we’re here to address every aspect of your health — physical, mental and spiritual — as you face your condition.

Both community-based and in-hospital services provide discussions about your preferences for care, advanced care planning as well as:

• Comfort care
• Emotional support
• Improving quality of life
• Offering symptom relief
• Physical and psychosocial relief
• Reducing stress
• Spiritual care, if desired

Both palliative care programs offer important resources and support for your family to help you on your journey. Each care plan is tailored to your specific needs, but plans often include:

• Affirmation of life
• Bereavement care
• Education on disease and diagnosis
• Family support
• Home help with transportation, meals or shopping
• Pain relief
• Physical care
• Psychological care
• Respite care
• Spiritual care
• Treatment management

Palliative and hospice care are often confused but aren’t the same thing. Hospice care focuses on end-of-life care, offering dignity and comfort during a loved one’s final days. In contrast, palliative care focuses on helping you live every day to its fullest during any stage of health.

For patients who face a serious illness, palliative care improves their quality of life and supports their loved ones, too. Palliative care focuses on the prevention and relief of symptoms by early identification, impeccable assessment and compassionate treatment of physical, mental and spiritual issues.

This palliative definition from the World Health Organization (WHO) focuses on meeting the whole-health needs of patients and their families. And that’s exactly what we do at UChicago Medicine AdventHealth. You can count on us to be here for you, helping you understand your diagnosis, connecting you with resources and support and ensuring you feel comfortable at every step of your treatment plan.

Our palliative care teams support:

• ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)
• Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias
• Cancer
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• Congestive heart failure
• Heart disease
• Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS)
• Kidney disease
• Lung disease
• Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases