By Bethany Cox Snider, MD

It’s time to reframe the conversation around serious illness care. That’s where Pallitus Health Partners comes in.

You might be wondering, who is Pallitus Health? It’s the new name for Hosparus Health’s palliative care services. We’re part of the Hosparus family, but the services we provide are separate from the hospice care Hosparus is known for.

Through the evolution and growth of Hosparus Health’s palliative services over the past few years, we saw the need to launch a branded model that will create new and exciting opportunities to serve more patients than ever before — and reach them earlier in their illness. After extensive research, we discovered that what our community needs is a partner in their healthcare journey. Pallitus Health is that partner.

New Name, Same Great Care

While our palliative program is operating under a new name, Pallitus Health continues to deliver the same exceptional care and compassion patients and families have come to expect. Our care offers as an extra layer of support for anyone facing serious illness, providing comfort and expert care that is designed to help them make the most of each day. Patients can access our high-quality palliative care at any time during their illness and continue for as long as necessary.

Our teams of doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses and social workers care for patients wherever they call home. They work in coordination with patients’ other doctors to help them navigate all the challenges of serious illness — physical, medical, social and emotional. A provider-led model, Pallitus Health Partners offers chronic symptom management and specialty medical management designed to meet individual patient goals.

Who Can Benefit

We serve patients with serious or life-limiting illnesses such as cancer, COPD, heart failure, dementia, Parkinson’s disease and many other conditions, with a focus on those whose disease has significantly impacted their daily living and functional abilities, and puts them at risk for increased ER visits and hospitalization.

Our purpose is to offer the best possible quality of life for patients and their families by managing symptoms, educating them about their disease and its trajectory, connecting them with the appropriate community resources, and assessing their goals to guide their plan of care.

How It Works

As part of the Pallitus Health program, our patients receive the following:

• In-Home and/or virtual nurse practitioner and physician visits.
• In-Home and/or virtual Palliative Care Social Work visits.
• Virtual/Telephone Nurse care coordination and medication management.
• 24/7 telephone access to providers for palliative care needs.
• Medication management for symptom medications.
• Assistance with advance care planning and advance directives.

Our services are covered by most insurance plans. In fact, a visit with one of our palliative care specialists is billed just like any other doctor’s visit. The only difference is, the “office” is wherever a patient calls home.

Specialty Care

While palliative care can benefit people with many types of serious or chronic illnesses, Pallitus Health has seen a significant increase in the number of patients with advanced heart and lung diseases who could benefit from our supportive services.

That is why we developed two disease-specific specialty services, Heart Connection and the Lung Care Program, to provide specialized palliative care to better meet those needs. The customized care offered by both programs has been shown to increase patients’ comfort and extend their life expectancy.

They each provide specialized tools to manage symptoms and delay disease progression, including:

• A symptom management toolkit that includes: a symptom tracker, action plan tool, medication organizer and education guide.
• Medications to help alleviate discomfort and other troubling symptoms, such as shortness of breath.
• 24-hour access by phone to expert clinical staff.
• Ongoing patient and caregiver education.

-Bethany Cox Snider, MD, is Chief Medical Officer for Hosparus Health and Pallitus Health Partners.