2015 Oklahoma Statutes
Title 63. Public Health and Safety
§63-1-860.2. Definitions.

As used in the Oklahoma Hospice Licensing Act:

1. "Board" means the State Board of Health;

2. "Department" means the State Department of Health;

3. "Hospice program" means a centrally administered, nonprofit or profit, medically directed, nurse-coordinated program which provides a continuum of home and inpatient care for the terminally ill patient and the patient's family. A hospice program offers palliative and supportive care to meet the special needs arising out of the physical, emotional and spiritual stresses experienced during the final stages of illness and during dying and bereavement. This care is available twenty-four (24) hours a day, seven (7) days a week, and is provided on the basis of need, regardless of ability to pay. "Class A" Hospice refers to Medicare certified hospices. "Class B" refers to all other providers of hospice services;

4. "Hospice interdisciplinary team" or "hospice team" means a unit composed of professionals and lay persons, as specified by the Oklahoma Hospice Licensing Act, who provide hospice care;

5. "Hospice patient/family" means the hospice patient's immediate kin, including a spouse, brother, sister, child, parent or other persons with significant personal ties to the hospice patient, who may be designated by members of the hospice patient/family;

6. "Hospice services" means those services furnished to a patient by a hospice or by other persons, pursuant to arrangements with such hospice, in a place of temporary or permanent residence used as the home of the terminally ill patient for the purpose of maintaining the patient at home. Should a patient require short-term institutionalization, such hospice services shall be furnished in cooperation with those contracted institutions or in a hospice inpatient facility. Such services may include, but need not be limited to, bereavement, palliative, personal care and such other services as are provided by nurses, physicians, home health aides, physical therapists, counselors, psychologists, social workers and volunteers. Services provided by a hospital, nursing home or other health care provider shall not constitute hospice services unless such hospital, nursing home or other health care provider is licensed as a hospice program;

7. "Medical advisor" means a physician licensed pursuant to the laws of this state who is commissioned as a medical advisor by a hospice for the purpose of providing ongoing palliative care as a member of a hospice team;

8. "Palliative services" means the care or treatment given to a patient by a hospice team for the reduction or abatement of pain and other symptoms attendant to the patient’s condition;

9. "Patient" means a terminally ill person receiving hospice services;

10. "Terminally ill" means a medical prognosis of limited life expectancy of one (1) year or less at the time of referral to a hospice of a person who is experiencing an illness for which therapeutic strategies directed toward cure and control of the illness alone, outside the context of symptom control, are no longer appropriate;

11. "Bereavement" means the period of time following death during which survivors mourn a death and process their grief;

12. "Bereavement services" means support services offered to a family during the bereavement period;

13. " Hospice inpatient facility" means a facility of a licensed hospice program, with twelve or fewer beds, in which only hospice services are provided;

14. "Personal care" means services provided to a patient in a home to meet the physical requirements and to accommodate the maintenance or supportive needs of a patient;

15. "Medically directed" means the delivery of medical care as directed by a medical advisor;

16. "Hospice home services" means hospice services provided primarily in the home of a patient;

17. "Inpatient services" means hospice services provided to patients who require twenty-four (24) hour supervision by a licensed health care provider; and

18. "Health care provider" means a facility or institution licensed by the laws of this state to provide on a regular basis medical services, skilled nursing care, necessary dietary service, hospice inpatient services or personal care. The term "health care provider" includes, but is not limited to, hospice inpatient facilities, hospitals, skilled nursing homes, intermediate care facilities and residential care facilities.

Added by Laws 1991, c. 217, § 2, eff. Sept. 1, 1991. Amended by Laws 1992, c. 236, § 1, emerg. eff. May 19, 1992; Laws 1997, c. 189, § 1, eff. Nov. 1, 1997; Laws 2003, c. 339, § 1, eff. Nov. 1, 2003.