Palliative Care | Blessing Health System

If you or a loved one is dealing with a chronic disease, Blessing Palliative Care can significantly help. Palliative care is specialized medical care focused on helping manage symptoms related to your illness to provide comfort and increase your quality of life. It can help people at any stage of illness.

Palliative care is an extra layer of support that enriches the care you are already receiving. This type of care may also be called supportive care or symptom management. It is used in conjunction with traditional medicine to prevent or treat symptoms and side effects as early as possible.

Symptoms palliative care can help with include:

Pain
Loss of mobility
Fatigue
Shortness of breath
Problems such as nausea, heartburn, and constipation
Loss of appetite
Sleeplessness
Anxiety
Depression

Experience the Blessing Difference: Palliative Care

Blessing Palliative Care team provides comfort and compassion for patients with a chronic or serious illness. Our support includes:

Managing symptoms: We work with you to lessen pain, nausea, anxiety, fatigue, depression, shortness of breath, constipation, loss of appetite and other symptoms that may come with serious illness or are side effects of treatment.
Making care decisions: We help you and your family consider care choices and make decisions about quality of life and treatment options.
Providing support: Our team helps identify what is important to you and your family and communicates those issues to the your health care team. We can also:
- Facilitate communications in complicated family situations
- Provide spiritual and emotional support throughout the course of an illness
- Identify needed resources for care at home or in another setting
Accessibility: Blessing Hospice and Palliative Care is a non-profit organization. Medicare, Medicaid and most private insurance covers our services. In addition to our offices in Quincy, we offer visits in our rural clinics:
- Casteel Center, Pittsfield: Located at 640 W. Washington Street. Call 217-285-2113, ext. 3950.
- Blessing Health Hamilton Warsaw, Warsaw. Located at 1102 County Road 700. Call 217-256-4100.
- Blessing Health Hannibal: 100 Medical Drive.

Your Team

Our experienced, compassionate Blessing Palliative Care team includes doctors, advance practice nurses, a care coordinator, social workers and chaplains.

Our team of professionals can help you manage any physical, emotional, mental, social or spiritual issues that may come up as a result of your illness. We work with your doctor and the hospital team to provide symptom management and supportive care.

We are truly devoted to the work we do. Our patients benefit from our commitment, experience, training and expertise in palliative care. Our medical director and patient care supervisor are certified in both hospice and palliative care. This certification means that they have spent many hours caring for patients and have passed rigorous exams.

Your Services

Through Blessing Palliative Care, an interdisciplinary team of palliative medicine specialists approaches each person’s situation with empathy. Team members spend time with you and your family and support you every step of the way. They’ll help you control your symptoms, relieve stress, and improve quality of life for both you and your family.

Hospital Services: You or your primary team of providers can request palliative care services at any time while you’re being treated at Blessing Hospital. Palliative providers initially meet with you and your family to begin building a care plan that meets your physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.
Outpatient Services: Blessing’s outpatient palliative care service can supplement your care even if you’re not being treated by a Blessing Clinic doctor. If you’re living with symptoms due to serious illness, ask your doctor for a palliative care referral.
How do I enroll in Palliative Care? Palliative care for Blessing Hospital patients requires a referral from a physician. If you or a loved one would like the additional support of palliative care for a better quality of life, call (217) 223-8400, ext. 5533, or complete our online referral form.
Who pays for Palliative Care? Most private insurers, Medicare, and Medical Assistance (Medicaid?) cover palliative care services. There also are private-pay options.

If you have any questions or concerns about insurance, please contact a Blessing Health System customer service representative at (217) 223-8400, ext. 5533.

Planning Ahead

While we strive to be independent and maintain control of our lives, we may not have a say in our own care during a debilitating illness. An advance directive makes your wishes known when your voice may no longer be able to be heard.

Advance Directives: To support your wishes when you can't communicate them in a medical crisis, you can create an Advance Directive through two vital documents: a Living Will and a Health Care Proxy form. Click here to learn more about Advance Directive services.