Hospice Medical Director

Why Brighton

At Brighton/Suncrest Hospice our goal is to change the expectation of hospice care in your area by providing exceptional care and service to our patients.  This is achieved by allocating the resources to increase our staff to patient ratios, thereby increasing clinical visits while lowering clinician caseloads. We are proud to be a Community Health Accreditation Partner (CHAP) certified hospice. If you have a commitment to providing the highest quality of care to patients and their families, we would like to hear from you!

 

The hospice Medical Director will have overall responsibility for the medical component of the hospice program.  The hospice Medical Director will provide oversight of physician services by complementing attending physician care, acting as a medical resource to the interdisciplinary group, assuring continuity of hospice medical services, and assuring appropriate measures to control patient symptoms. The Medical director will serve as a hospice champion – promoting and representing the program to physicians, physician groups, discharge planners, other referral sources, community health organizations, and potential donors, as appropriate.

 

Details

The duties and responsibilities of the Medical Director will include, but not be limited to, the following:

1. Devoting his/her best ability to the proper management of the program

2. Providing overall medical direction to the program

3. Assuring that the established policies, bylaws, rules, and regulations of Suncrest Hospice are followed in the program

4. Adhering to requirements, terms, and conditions required by Medicare Conditions of Participation, accrediting body, and federal and state statutes governing the provision of services

5. Establishing and continually reviewing policies and procedures related to patient care, medical education, and emergency procedures

6. Developing and continually reviewing, in cooperation with the CEO/Executive Director/Administrator and/or Chief Clinical Officer/Clinical Director, criteria to monitor the quality of the education programs provided to physicians, personnel, and volunteers

7. Evaluating quality assessment performance improvement (QAPI) plans and monitoring to identify medical education needs in cooperation with the CEO/Executive Director/Administrator and/or Chief Clinical Officer/Clinical Director. Participates in QAPI teams and activities, as needed

8. Proposing organizational programs to address the needs identified (with the assistance and input of consultants of the specialties where medical education needs were identified)

9. Working with the CEO/Executive Director/Administrator and/or CCO/Clinical Director, after implementation of the programs, to determine the impact of said programs on the quality of care

10. Serving as a hospice champion in the community

11. Acting as a liaison to community physicians by providing consultation and education to colleagues and attending physicians related to admission criteria for hospice and palliative care

12. Acting as medical liaison with other physicians at Suncrest Hospice

13. Providing training regarding the medical aspects of caring for terminally ill patients to physicians, personnel, and volunteers

14. Reviewing patients’ medical eligibility for hospice services, in accordance with hospice program policies and procedures, and establishing the plan of care in conjunctions with attending physician and interdisciplinary group prior to providing care written certification of terminal illness

15. Providing written certification of the terminal illness for all subsequent benefit periods

16. Perform face-to-face encounters within thirty (30) days of the third and subsequent hospice benefit certification periods and attest to the encounter. (NP may complete the encounter and report findings to the hospice physician.)

17. Consulting with attending physicians regarding pain and symptoms management for hospice patients

18. Managing oversight of the patient’s medications and treatments

19. Acting as medical resource to the hospice interdisciplinary group

20. Attending interdisciplinary group meetings and working in a team approach with the group

21. In conjunction with the attending physician and interdisciplinary group, reviewing and updating the plan of care at least every 15 days, or more frequently as needed.

22. Documenting care provided in the patient’s clinical record, providing evidence of progression of the end-stage disease process

23. Acting as primary physician for patients whose referring/attending physicians desire to relinquish that care and/or if the referring/attending physicians are not available for further contact

24. Maintaining current knowledge of the latest research and trends in hospice care and pain/symp