Hospice firms to try again for state licenses

Hope Hospice in Lee County and Toledo, Ohio-based Heartland Hospice Services of Florida Inc. each sent notices to state health-care regulators stating their intentions to file detailed applications for their respective hospice proposals.

The applications are due Jan. 2 to the state Agency for Health Care Administration in Tallahassee. The state will issue decisions Feb. 27.

Hospice care involves providing comfort services for terminally ill patients diagnosed with six months or less to live. The focus is pain management, symptom control, and counseling. The mission is to allow terminally ill people to die in dignity. Hospice care can be provided in an individual's home, in a hospice residence, nursing home or hospital.

In August, the state had denied licenses to both hospice organizations, stating in evaluation reports that both applications had failed to demonstrate that terminally ill people in Collier County are not receiving hospice care, are experiencing delays getting such care or are being turned down.

Hospice of Naples, the only hospice organization in Collier, had objected to both applications, saying the community's needs are being met.

Hope Hospice had stated in its first application that blacks, people younger than 65, patients needing palliative care, and residents of Immokalee are not adequately served.

Heartland, which owns nursing homes in Lee and Collier, argued in its application that terminally ill people with heart disease, cancer and chronic respiratory disease are not using hospice services in Collier to the same extent as they are in other communities.