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GENTIVA HOSPICE SERVICES · One on One With a Professional

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  Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
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  It is time now for one on one with the pro and we have
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  michell in from Gentiva Hospice and how are you today, young lady? And
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  then really good. It's hot out there, but you know what, I
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  love it. I'd rather be hot than cold. So I think that's why
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  a lot of people move to Oklahoma is to get away from the cold and
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  get into this really good summertime stuff. Yes, Now, Gentiva Hospice is
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  a service that has a big footprint. We're all over. If you can
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  hear our voice, you can use their service. And even if you're traveling
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  through, we'll find somebody that'll take care of your service if you need it.
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  But first of all, let's go over what Gentiva Hospice is and what
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  it isn't because there seems to be some confusion, you know, that just
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  seems to be the recurring problem that we we do it. So I'll just
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  start off by giving the actual def of hospice care. So, by definition,
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  it is an advanced plan of care in which we focus on the patient,
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  their needs, the needs of their family instead of focusing on a specific
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  disease process. So it is absolutely one hundred percent a care plan where the
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  patient's going to get care for everything that they can get cared for. We're
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  going to treat anything that we can treat. We're just not going to actively
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  you know, search for treatments for whatever terminal illness that they have. So
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  I like to start with that, that is, it is a care plan,
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  so they are going to get care. It isn't just you know,
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  given up or whatever. So in hospice is it's a it's really a gift.
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  It's a gift just as much to the patient's family as it is to
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  the patient themselves. I tell people, it's really not even a fifty to
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  fifty. I mean, it's almost like a seventy thirty because the patient at
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  that point pretty much knows what their end game is. So there's so much
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  we can do for that patient, you know, as far as keeping them
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  comfortable and keeping them safe and keeping them you know, out of pain and
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  all of that. But there's a lot more that we can do for the
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  family the way of education, additional resources, support, bereavement. There's a
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  lot of things that we can do for the family, helping with end of
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  life needs, with planning, you know, any kind of estate planning or
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  you know, legal issues, things like that. There's a lot of things
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  we can do to help the family. Well right there that you just mentioned
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  a handful, but those handful, those are heavy. They are heavy,
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  very heavy. So it's great to have a service like Gentiva around to help
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  us out in our time of need. Now, we've got some things that
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  we'd like to bring up. A nurse visit first, we'll talk about that,
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  okay. So guidelines from Medicare say that for a patient on hospice,
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  a nurse has to see them at least once every fourteen days. That's the
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  bare minimum. That's just what Medicare regulation states. Most hospice providers send a
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  nurse out to see their patients once a week, but at Gentiva, we
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  like to set the bar a little higher. And so one of the things
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  that sets us apart is that we see all of our patients at least twice
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  a week by in our and there's a reason for that. I mean,
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  obviously, you know, when someone's at the end of life and they're needing
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  that special care, a lot can happen in a seven days time span.
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  So by keeping a nurse in there, at least twice a week and will
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  also increase those visits if they need it. But that's a Gentiva standard across
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  the board. That's not just a Tulsa office thing or you know, an
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  Oklahoma thing. That's Gentiva nationwide. Is that our patients get seen at least
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  twice a week by an arian just sets the bar a little higher. I
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  know you had a question over the weekend someone asked, well, does Gentiva
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  do your people stay overnight at my house? We have someone in our home
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  that is needing the service. You know, that's a good question and we
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  do get that asked frequently. But hospice care is not twenty four hour care.
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  It is designed to be for a purpose. We're in there to take
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  care of that patient and take care of the family needs. But we don't
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  provide twenty four hour care. So some people are like, oh good,
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  I don't want somebody in my house all the time. Other people are like,
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  oh, but I really need twenty four hour care. So what we
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  do We assess that patient and family need, and if they do need twenty
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  four hour caregivers, we can connect them with a different provider that that does
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  that. And it's not hospice care. Hospice is not a twenty four hour
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  care giving service, but we do. There are other agencies that do provide
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  twenty four hour care, and so we make that connection. That's one of
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  the services that we offer, is that making that connection, facilitating those resources
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  for that patient family so that we can get them the care that they absolutely
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  need. We're here with Michelle with genteevench boy. I tell you why you're
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  a god seene here because you've got a lot of answers for a lot of
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  folks who are struggling right about that. At this time, I'm wondering whether
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  or not this is appropriate care for a loved one or a friend, and
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  also going through what probably will be questions that will pop up at any time.
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  Now, one thing you can be reassured of is that Gentiva is a
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  five star provider. What does that mean? Absolutely? So another thing that
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  Medicare regulates and they track and they started a rating system couple of years ago.
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  A lot of hospitals get it now and they started it with home health
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  and hospices and lots of health care services. They get a rating and it's
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  much like you know a movie rating. Oh, you get five out of
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  five stars. You get three out of five stars for whatever quality your movie
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  is or your you know whatever. So they started rating hospices and home health
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  care providers for their quality of care, timeliness of attention to the patient's needs,
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  pain management, communication with families, education of the family, lots of
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  different there's lots of components with it, but they don't give out five stars
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  just like oh, you get five stars and you get so it is definitely
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  not a participation trophy. So and it's very fluid. I mean it changes
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  month to month, but Gentiva was we received a five star rating multiple times.
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  So at one point last summer before last we had we got a five
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  star rating for eight months in a row. So that is huge. And
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  then you know other providers may get a five star rating. It just but
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  I think it's it speaks to the quality of our care that we've been given
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  a five star rating multiple times. Consistency and that's really what counts. Now,
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  just like school ratio teacher to pupil, we have also caregiver to care
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  receiver. That's right, that ratio is kept at a perfect ratio, yes,
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  so that everybody gets the best of that's right. So like you mentioned
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  in a classroom. You know, if you've got kids in elementary school,
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  do you want your child in a classroom that has fifty students and one teacher
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  or would you rather have them in a classroom that's like twenty to one.
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  Makes sense because the lower the ratio is, the better the quality of education
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  they're going to get, the more attention. So Gentiva's standard, again,
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  this is a company standard across the board. They want to keep the ratio
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  of nurse case managers to patients very very low so that our case managers aren't
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  getting overwhelmed. They're able to focus and give that personalized attention to each patient,
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  so they won't let our ratio get more than twelve to one. Twelve
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  patients to one are in case manager. I think that speaks volumes. If
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  if we get to the point where we're getting close to that threshold of twelve
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  or thirteen to one, we're instructed to hire a new nurse. So that's
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  what we do, is we want to make sure that that ratio is low
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  so that focus can be very personal and very very good attention given to each
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  patient that is on our service. Crossing the t's dot absolutely right, Michelle,
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  We've got another thing that we want to bring up, but I'm not
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  sure where I'm going on this. Okay, all I see is one hundred
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  percent. It seems like a pretty good percent. So the statistic is one
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  p hv L d L. We've been given one hundred percent on that metric
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  for the last four months consecutively. And HVLDL stands for hospice visits last days
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  of life. So CMS tracks all the patients that are on hospice care and
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  they watch them as they're passing, when they get to those final four days
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  of passing three or four days of passing to see if one if an r
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  ND saw them, and if a social worker saw that patient in at least
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  two of those last three days. And we've been given one hundred percent for
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  the last four months. So what happens then is we put our patients on
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  daily visits. That's a pretty standard thing for hospice care. But what Gentiva
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  does. We want to make sure that a nurse and a social worker and
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  usually the chaplain is also visiting those patients every day of those last few days.
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  For lots of reasons, we want to make sure that the patient is
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  seen by a nurse to make sure that the comfort meds are in place,
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  that the family understands how to administer those comfort meds, make sure that there's
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  not any questions and the patient is completely comfortable and at peace. The social
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  worker and chaplain want to come in there to make sure that the family's needs
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  are met, make sure that there's not any unresolved issues, questions, fears,
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  you know, and support. We want to make sure that they have
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  that support. We want them to know that we're there for them. They're
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  not going through this alone. So to receive one hundred percent on that particular
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  metric that is tracked is very important. You know, our veterans give so
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  much and we we feel that it's all always an obligation to take care of
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  our veterans the best we can. You have veterans programs that you honor all
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  of them, right, Yes, we do. There's a program, a
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  nationwide program called We Honor Veterans. That's the name of the program, and
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  it includes things like specific training on how to deal with veteran end of life
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  needs. For example, veterans who served in combat, they have a lot
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  different mindset about pain, about passing, about what they what they share,
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  and so being a part of the way on our Veterans Program, our staff
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  is trained on kind of asking the right questions to help find the answers to
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  those questions, those issues in the mind of those veterans that don't necessarily want
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  to, you know, just voice their concerns right out there, and they
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  don't do that. They're taught to be you know, they're very they're taught
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  to be very stoic, and they just deal with things on their own.
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  And so being a part of the way on our Veterans program, we're specifically
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  trained on dealing with veteran and their specific end of life needs. And then
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  also we do special things to honor them. So while we have them on
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  our service, we have a penning ceremony where we just give them a little
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  veteran penance, a way of our our way of saying thank you, and
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  our way of serving those who have served us. And then when the patient
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  does pass, we do have a little ceremony where we drape the body with
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  an American flag as they're being removed, and we have a moment of silence
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  just in honor of those who have taken whose lives have been given or you
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  know who took that time to serve for us so that we can have the
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  freedoms that we have. Wow, that is amazing. It's all about being
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  thoughtful, it's all about being intention it's all about taking care of all the
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  details. And Gentiva does that. That's right now. We've told a lot
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  of people about many of the things that Gentiva does. How do we get
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  a hold of the folks at Gentiva and maybe even Michelle in particular. The
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  best way to get a hold of it is just to call me directly.
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  My number is nine one eight four zero four six eight nine nine. Again
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  it's nine one eight four zero four six eight nine nine, and I can
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  help you wherever you are. I am working with a patient right now who's
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  in Colorado Springs, and I've been in touch with the Colorado Springs office where
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  you know, we're communicating and I'm facilitating that admission. The patient actually is
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  from Oklahoma, went to Colorado for a visit and decided to stay so and
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  as in the in need of hospice. So it doesn't matter where your loved
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  one is or where you know. If you know of someone who might benefit
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  from the hospice care plan, let me know and I can connect them with
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  the office that would service their area. And it's just I'm just one phone
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  call. You don't have to know one hundred different phone numbers, you don't
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  need to look up the office for that area. Just call me and I'll
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  take care of all of that for you. That's great. That's great.
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  Now for folks you might not be an immediate need. The website serves a
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  good purpose if you if you really have a sense that this is going to
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  something that's going to be playing a role in your life, and eventually it
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  will. Yes, you might want to get ahead of the curb and take
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  a look at what's on there because it's easy to navigate, it's easy to
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  find a basically point click answer your questions. And it's gentivahs dot com.
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  It stands for Hospice Services. Yeah, my goodness sakes. You know,
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  it seems like there are a lot of folks who have said, you know
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  that lady when she comes on there, she just seems very confident, she
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  knows what's going on, and said, yeah, that's the whole team there.
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  Gentiva is just that way. They are very confident, they know what's
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  going on and they're there to help you and to help your family through the
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  most trying time and that you can imagine absolutely, And we just want everybody
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  to know that, you know, they don't have to go through this time
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  alone. Sometimes it seems very isolating, and when you're dealing with the crisis
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  situation, it just helps to know that you've got some people in your corner
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  and there to help you through all of the ins and outs and ups and
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  downs and highs and lows. You know we're there to take care of the
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  patient and their family. And once again, if you can hear our voice
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  on the radio, Gentiva is in your neighborhood absolutely and we can take care
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  of you. Just connect with Michelle and we will get the ball rolling,
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  answer a lot of questions and let you know about the different types of service
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  and what you can expect. And of course the expectations are often superseded,
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  as we find out here with our five Star Provider awards and also with one
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  hundred percent with the metrics there on that as well. You're not going in
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  with someone who's doing trial and error this experience on your side. And it's
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  important to know also that it's better to reach out earlier rather than later.
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  You know, a lot of times people wait too long to get reach out
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  and get that hospice care. And there's so much more that we can do
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  when we have that patient on for a little bit longer, more education for
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  the family, and really better quality of care the longer we have them on
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  service. Indeed, indeed, let's all make it positive. And Michelle,
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  once again, let's give everybody out your phone number nine one eight four zero
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  four six eight nine nine. All right, once again, folks, you
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  have been watching and listening to one on one with the Bro and Michelle Freeley
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  has been our guest here with Gentiva Hospice Services. Alrighty, once again,
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  you can always get the podcast with our on demand services if you miss something.
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  Thanks for listening to one on a little professional paid presentation on a fourteen
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  Hebrew K one