| To be eligible for hospice, patients must meet both of the following criteria: |
| I. Functional Assessment Staging (FAST): Patient must be at or beyond stage 7; unable to walk, dress, and bathe without assistance; urinary and fecal incontinence (intermittent or constant); no consistently meaningful verbal communication (stereotypical phrases only or the ability to speak is limited to six or fewer intelligible words) |
| II. Medical conditions: Patients must have had at least one of the listed medical conditions over the prior year |
| I. Functional Assessment Staging (FAST) |
| Stage | Features |
| 1 | No objective or subjective difficulties |
| 2 | Subjective complaints of forgetting |
| 3 | Decreased job functioning evident to coworkers; difficulty traveling to new locations |
| 4 | Decreased ability performing complex tasks, eg, planning dinner for guests, handling finances |
| 5 | Requires assistance to choose proper clothes for day, season, or occasion |
| 6a | Cannot dress without assistance; occasionally or more frequently |
| 6b | Cannot bathe without assistance; occasionally or more frequently |
| 6c | Cannot toilet without assistance; occasionally or more frequently |
| 6d | Incontinent of urine; occasionally or frequently |
| 6e | Incontinent of bowel; occasionally or frequently |
| 7a | Speech limited to fewer than six intelligible words during an average day |
| 7b | Speech limited to single intelligible word during an average day |
| 7c | Unable to ambulate independently |
| 7d | Cannot sit up independently |
| 7e | Cannot smile |
| 7f | Cannot hold head up independently |
| II. Medical conditions |
- Aspiration pneumonia
|
- Pyelonephritis
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- Septicemia
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- Decubitus ulcer, multiple, stage 3 to 4
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- Recurrent fever after treatment with antibiotics
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- Inability to maintain sufficient fluid and calorie intake with 10% weight loss during the previous six months or serum albumin <2.5 g/dL
|
