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Ways to Give Understanding Our Need
Ways to Give Understanding Our Need
Understanding Our Need
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Hospice and Palliative Care of Northern Colorado, seeks financial support to accomplish our mission of honoring and dignifying life’s final journey by providing quality end-of-life care, consoling the grieving and educating our community. We desire to touch the lives of everyone in our community – not just the elderly, sick or infirmed. We wish to touch the lives of the husband and wife coping with a spouse’s life ending medical condition. We want to comfort the child dealing with the death of a mother while the father wrestles with the issues of being a single parent. We seek to reassure entire families with the knowledge that someone else cares. We aspire to help renew faith in the future. HPCNC receives reimbursement for our costs from Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance. All three sources pay present amounts on a per-day, per-patient basis. That rate, however, fall short of the actual cost of care. In our fiscal year of 2008, we served 604 patients in our hospice program for an average stay of 45 days. Of those 604patients, 519 were discharged by the end of our fiscal year. The per-patient, per-day cost is $185.92. The actual reimbursement per-day through Medicare, Medicaid or private insurance is $162.13. This creates an $23.72 difference per-day for each patient, equaling $637,095.48 for the year. Since we never deny a patient treatment due to ability to pay, we incurred $165,103.95 in 2008 due to covering costs in free medical care to patients and their families. This difference must be made up through other sources. Shortfall from per-diem reimbursement to cover costs associated with all patient care is covered through personal memorial contributions, grants, support from local businesses, underwriting, in-kind gifts and fundraising. It is through these efforts that HPCNC continues to do its work; however, as health care costs increases, new avenues for raising funds and building revenue and a reserve base for future expansion of services and operations are necessary. |