Gentiva Hospice opens first office in Springfield area

A long-time provider of end-of-life care has opened an office in the Springfield area that will serve individuals living in a 60-mile radius.

Gentiva Hospice scheduled a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house for April 15 at 2424 W. Kingsley St., Suites A-B.

The Georgia-based company operates more than a dozen centers in Missouri. The closest are in Carthage, Joplin and Neosho. Some of its Missouri locations, including Sedalia and Jefferson City, go by the name Heartland Hospice.

Megan Friedman, director of communications for Gentiva in Atlanta, declined to provide startup costs for the new office. She said the company has a multiyear lease for its 2,990-square-foot office with the Kingsley Building, LLC but declined to provide specific terms.

Candee Trujillo, executive director, said the Springfield office started accepting patients in late September and has served 34 in the initial months of operation. She said referrals and admissions are accepted 24 hours a day, any day of the year.

The office has 11 employees but expects to add staff as it grows. The team will include nurses, hospice physicians, aides, chaplains, spiritual care coordinators and social workers.

Gentiva is part of a system of hospice, palliative and home health care providers with more than 450 locations and 15,000 employees nationally. The hospice serves patients with a serious illness or terminal diagnosis.

Trujillo said data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicate Services showed too few individuals in the Springfield area were utilizing hospice benefits offered through most Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance plans.

“We’re seeing that a lot of it was going unused,” she said.

“One thing we’re focusing on, like us personally here in Springfield, is to get out and provide education on hospice and people’s benefits.”

Trujillo said it is important to provide information about the care available before it is provided.

“If people have that information at hand, then they know what to do and when to do it,” she said. “It’s really hard to make those decisions when you’re not prepared.”

The hospice creates a personal care plan including medications, equipment and supplies that are provided in wherever the patient calls home, according to a news release.

Trujillo there is also specialized care for veterans. The company also provides outreach and education on how diseases progress.

“Say we have a cancer patient and they start treatment. They can’t come on hospice, but we can still touch base with them, see how they’re doing, and we follow them along that journey so that whenever that time comes, they got that trust and a relationship building with us,” she said. “Then we can step in and help them at the hardest part, at the end of the journey.”