NEW STATE REGULATIONS: MORE OPTIONS, BETTER CARE

January 6, 2015

On December 19, 2014 new statewide regulations went into effect which require all licensed hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities to distribute information regarding palliative care, hospice care and end of life care options to adults diagnosed with a terminal illness or condition which can reasonably be expected to cause death within six months, to enable adults to make informed choices about their care.

The language in the requirements is intended to ensure that “attending health care practitioners” and “appropriate patients” in Massachusetts be made aware of a full range of care options, including that palliative care is an option for pain and symptom management and that Hospice is an option focused on comfort and dignity available as a 6 month benefit rather than merely in the final days of life.

The new law increases the likelihood that every adult will be given comprehensive information about their medical condition and to choose the kind of care they want because it explicitly requires doctors and care providers to work in partnership with their patients to match the best possible care to a patient’s goals, values and choices.

As quoted in the Department of Public Health’s new informational brochure Know Your Choices: A Guide for Patients with Serious Advancing Illness, “In Massachusetts, all patients with serious advancing illness have the legal right to receive information about their medical condition, their likely outcome (prognosis), and their full range of options for care.”

For Massachusetts adults with such illnesses, these new regulations require that their treating care provider offer them information about their illness, including the benefits and burdens of each care option, so that adults can make informed decisions about their health care. If an adult lacks the ability to make or communicate decisions, their treating care provider must offer this information to whoever has the authority to make decisions on the adult’s behalf, typically the Health Care Agent or Guardian.

Additionally, the new regulations allow health care providers “to arrange for information and counseling to be provided by another professionally qualified person.” In this regard, Honoring Choices offers our Community Partners a Health Care Planning Facilitator Course for care professionals to enhance their health care planning knowledge and communication skills. We also offer to the general public the Respecting Choices First Steps Advance Care Planning Facilitator Certification. Facilitators work as a team with treating care providers to engage adults and their families in planning discussions, to make a personal health care plan by using Massachusetts planning documents, and to connect adults to person-centered care that promotes everyday quality of life and honors their care choices at the end of life.

The Department of Public Health brochure, Know Your Choices: A Guide for Patients with Serious Advancing Illness, is an excellent source of information regarding Advance Care Planning, Palliative Care, Hospice Care, and Medical Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment. Free to all, it’s available in: English, Arabic, Cape Verdean, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Khmer, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese.

These new regulations will help to ensure that all Massachusetts adults, their Health Care Agents and Guardians will routinely receive a full range of options vital to make informed health care choices and receive quality person-centered care.

In the coming weeks, in this column, we’ll bring you much more information on legal rights and the perspectives of state and local experts. We have information and tools to help patients and care providers work together. To get started, follow these links: