“Can you get acupuncture treatment while on hospice?”
My friend is in hospice care. Can you get acupuncture treatment while on hospice?
9 Answers
Yes
Yes. you need to find someone who does home visits. I do home visits for $200 per session. You can call my office at 707-630-3251.
yes, since it is palliative in nature
Lejla Fazlicic
Acupuncturist
Yes you can.
Good luck
Dr. Leila
Good luck
Dr. Leila
You better ask if the hospice allows the acupuncture providers to give patients treatment, that's it.
You would need a doctor's order to receive it in a medical facility.
Absolutely. It will make your friend much more comfortable.
Yes, you can get acupuncture treatment while on hospice, it can reduce the suffering but you need to get permission from hospice care house.
Technically, no, there's no reason a patient on hospice couldn't receive acupuncture. Generally speaking, you're going to run into two potential issues:
1. Not many licensed acupuncturists make house-calls. In the amount of time it takes to make one house call, I could probably see 3-4 patients in office. In order to stay in practice, I'd have to price those home visits appropriately which ends up making them costly. Also important to note here: depending on where, in the US, your friend is located, their insurance plan may be more or less likely to have acupuncture coverage in the first place. In the second place, medicare covers acupuncture - only for low back pain - but actual L.Ac.'s are not eligible for medicare reimbursement (in other words, medicare covers acupuncture but won't pay an actual acupuncturist to perform the procedure. The reason why is complicated, but that's the bottom line).
2. Sometimes hospice patients are in a hospice facility and then you're dealing with facility rules around what treatments they will and will not permit on the premises. As much as we all might like to see acupuncture fully integrated into the medical delivery system in the US (like it is in most of east Asia), we aren't there yet.
1. Not many licensed acupuncturists make house-calls. In the amount of time it takes to make one house call, I could probably see 3-4 patients in office. In order to stay in practice, I'd have to price those home visits appropriately which ends up making them costly. Also important to note here: depending on where, in the US, your friend is located, their insurance plan may be more or less likely to have acupuncture coverage in the first place. In the second place, medicare covers acupuncture - only for low back pain - but actual L.Ac.'s are not eligible for medicare reimbursement (in other words, medicare covers acupuncture but won't pay an actual acupuncturist to perform the procedure. The reason why is complicated, but that's the bottom line).
2. Sometimes hospice patients are in a hospice facility and then you're dealing with facility rules around what treatments they will and will not permit on the premises. As much as we all might like to see acupuncture fully integrated into the medical delivery system in the US (like it is in most of east Asia), we aren't there yet.
