* Abbreviation: HBC — : home-based care Children with serious illness make up Click to show full abstract
* Abbreviation: HBC — : home-based care Children with serious illness make up <10% of the US population yet account for at least 50% of hospital resources for all children.1 While most of these children and their families would rather not be hospitalized or at the doctor’s office, addressing the children’s physical, emotional, and practical needs within the home can be challenging. Parents report struggling to ensure their children are comfortable and receiving needed treatments while addressing the emotional and practical needs of the entire family.2 Professional home-based care (HBC) services can be helpful, yet until recently, few options for this support existed. Home nursing care has been restricted to technology-dependent children and provides a limited range of services. Traditionally, home hospice, focusing on symptom management and psychosocial support, is only available at advanced disease stages if parents agree to forgo disease-directed treatment of their children. With these constraints, only a fraction of children with serious illness received HBC and typically do so only late in the disease course.3 Fortunately, recent federal and state policies have expanded options for HBC for children with serious illness. The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s Concurrent Care for Children provision allows children <21 years old with Medicaid and/or in the Children’s Health Insurance Program to receive disease-directed treatment along with hospice care, although life-expectancy guidelines of <6 months still apply.4 Tricare (for military … Address correspondence to Debra S. Lotstein, MD, MPH, FAAP, FAAHPM, Division of Comfort and Palliative Care, Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, 4650 Sunset Blvd, #170, Los Angeles, CA 90027. E-mail: dlotstein{at}chla.usc.edu
               
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