VITAS Advantage: Open Formulary for Patients Transitioning Home From Hospitals
How VITAS Helps You
VITAS maintains an open formulary to ensure that patients transitioning to our care continue the evidence-based therapies related to their terminal diagnosis.
We assure patients that while adjustments may occur as part of their shift from curative care to hospice, they do not need to stop all treatments to receive our care. With this approach, VITAS produces more favorable outcomes for patients, families and caregivers, and higher satisfaction scores for your hospital.
Case Study: Patient with Heart Failure
AF, a 68-year-old female, visits her primary care physician after discharge for her third hospitalization in six months for worsening heart failure (NYHA Class III) and a fall. She also has underlying COPD and early-stage dementia. The physician refers her to hospice care after a goals-of-care conversation with AF’s daughter, who is her primary caregiver. See Complete Case Study >
Professional Partnerships for Necessary Conversations and Easy Transitions
If your patient is experiencing unmanaged pain or has been in an ICU for an extended period without improvement, VITAS can help.
VITAS leverages our open formulary in partnership with specialists and hospitalists to facilitate hospice access and simplify the conversations that lead to transitions to hospice care. When hospitals trust VITAS to provide any disease-directed medications required for symptom relief, patients feel more confident in making the transition. Early transitions also improve important quality metrics for hospitals, such as Medicare spend per beneficiary, length of stay and overall HCAHPS scores.
Your hospital or healthcare system wants to reduce readmissions and Medicare spend per beneficiary while ensuring the best outcomes for your patients. If a patient remains hospice-eligible and rejects curative treatment, hospice inpatient stays to manage acute symptoms are not counted as rehospitalizations. Hospice care helps patients achieve an ideal death in their preferred setting, all while boosting HEDIS and CAHPS scores for providers.
Individualized Care Plan in Preferred Setting of Care
If your patient is ready for hospice, they may be hesitant to give up the medications prescribed as part of their curative treatment. They may fear a tumultuous transition from one medicine to the next or worry that their symptoms won’t be properly addressed.
VITAS develops a unique care plan for each patient, based on their medical needs, end-of-life wishes and goals of care. VITAS offers all four levels of hospice care to meet a patient’s varying needs throughout their disease trajectory and reducing the need for hospital stays or ER visits. VITAS can calm patients’ worries, address their needs and help you transition them to the benefits of palliative care.
Improved Patient Compliance
Once a patient is admitted to VITAS, we make compliance simple.
- Medication, home medical equipment and supplies are delivered to a patient’s preferred setting of care for a seamless, CMS-compliant transition
- A VITAS nurse provides training and oversight of medication for the patient, their family and caregiver
- We assist with home pill box construction
- Clinicians are available by phone 24/7, evenings, weekends and holidays, to answer questions or address concerns