Palliative Care

• Specialty trained palliative care providers who support you and your primary physician to optimize your quality of life
• A collaborative approach to managing your physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs
• A shared effort to maximize your health and minimize your symptoms
• Services provided concurrently with or independent of curative, life-prolonging care

• Are you experiencing symptoms that interfere with your ability to enjoy life?
• Do you need to make decisions about the next steps in the treatment of your illness?
• Would you like help setting goals of care and sharing these with your doctors and loved ones?
• Could you and your family benefit from an extra layer of support to address your needs?

• You and your current medical provider request a TRU Palliative Care consult
• A TRU Palliative Care team member meets with you and your loved ones to discuss your unique situation
• The TRU Palliative Care team reviews your situation and works with you, in conjunction with your primary health care team, to best meet your needs

• Assist your primary physician with symptom management
• Help you and your family establish and define your goals of care
• Coordinate and navigate any home services that would enhance your life
• Help you with advance directives planning
• Help you to match your medical treatment plans with your individual goals

• TRU’s board-certified physicians and nurse practitioners are uniquely qualified to address the needs and increase the comfort of people living with advanced illness and have been doing this work for over 40 years.
• TRU Palliative Care is one of multiple TRU Community Care programs that support an individual throughout the continuum of his or her health care needs.
• We help you receive the care you want, in the location where you want it, at the time you need it.
• We are communicative and collaborative coordinators of care. We remain in close contact with your primary health care providers.
• TRU utilizes technology for real-time virtual visits when deemed appropriate.
• TRU relies on community partnerships to bring additional support services to you as needed.

The TRU Community Care team is available to answer any questions that you or your loved ones may have. Please call us at 303.449.7740 to learn more.

TRU’s palliative care team remains in close communication with your existing health care providers and works with them to ensure you are achieving your goals.

Palliative care can be accessed at any stage of illness and delivered in any care setting through the collaboration of many types of care providers. Hospice is a Medicare/Medicaid/Private Insurance benefit for those individuals diagnosed with a terminal illness that if the disease process follows the anticipated trajectory is life-limiting of 6 months or less.

Palliative care is a team approach to patient-centered care. Depending on your needs at any given time, you may see our physician, nurse practitioner, nurse, social worker, chaplain, or volunteer.

Medicare and private insurance companies offer members of our palliative care team the ability to bill for our services. You may have a deductible or co-pay depending on your insurance provider.

You will continue to get your medications in the same manner as you have been. Our palliative care providers will provide medication consultation with your primary physician who will manage writing your prescriptions.

TRU Palliative Care has 24/7 telephone access that you may use to contact us to ask any questions regarding your palliative care. Please call 303.442.0971 and reference that you are a TRU Palliative Care patient. We would encourage you to communicate with your primary care provider for any questions regarding your current plan of care. Your primary care team may have after-hours support. Please check with your case manager.

If you are in need of urgent assistance, do not hesitate to go to the hospital. You will want to inform the hospital staff who your primary provider is and inform them you are enrolled in the TRU Palliative Care Program.

• Contact TRU’s Intake Department by phone at 303.604.5272
• Send a fax to TRU’s Intake Department at 303.604.5372
• Complete an online referral at: trucare.org/online-referral-form

• Medicare will allow two physicians of like specialty to bill on the same day with the same CPT codes if they utilize different diagnoses.
• When palliative consult visits coincide with the date of the primary physician’s visit, that physician should bill the primary disease code; the palliative consult will be billed using codes related to symptoms. For example:
  • Dr. X., attending December 1, 2018 (99232) Malignant neoplasm of thoracic esophagus (C15.4)
  • Dr. Y., consultant December 1, 2018 (99232) Pain; chest, noncardiac (R071.89)
• For questions regarding billing, please call the TRU Billing Department at 303.449.7740

We request your input on when and how often you would like updates from the TRU Palliative Care team. Our goal is to be as collaborative and communicative as possible.

Depending on your patient’s needs at any given time, your patient may see our physician, nurse practitioner, social worker, chaplain, or volunteer.

• Assistance with management of pain or any other symptoms
• Management of more complex depression, anxiety, grief, and/or existential distress
• Assistance with conflict resolution
• Assistance in addressing treatment benefit versus burden, futility