Levels Of Care

1. Routine Home Care

One of our goals at Golden Rule is to ensure that our patients can spend as much time at home as possible.

With Routine Home Care, our interdisciplinary team visits the patient in their residence. That might be their home, your home, an assisted living facility, a nursing home, or another location.

We administer care at home so that patients can stay where they feel safest and most at ease with minimal disruptions.

2. Continuous Care

This level of care also takes place in the patient’s home. Whereas routine home care is about the management of daily symptoms and needs, Continuous Care is what we provide during a medical crisis.

What constitutes a crisis is based on Medicare’s definitions, since Medicare covers the cost of this level of care.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) regulations state: “Continuous home care may only be provided during a period of crisis, as necessary to maintain an individual at home. A period of crisis is a period in which a patient requires continuous care that is predominantly nursing care to achieve palliation or management of acute medical symptoms.”

Symptoms which call for continuous care include:

• Severe unmanageable pain
• Bleeding from various orifices
• Acute respiratory distress that cannot be managed with medications
• Unrelenting nausea and vomiting
• Terminal agitation or restlessness

During each 24-hour period, we administer care for a minimum of 8 hours. This is a short-term service, unlike Routine Care and is revisited every 24 hours.

Continuous Care is one of two levels of care that fall into the category of “Supportive Care.” The other is Transitional Care.

3. Respite Care

Respite is a service in which the patient is placed in a contracted nursing facility, contracted hospital, or an inpatient facility, for up to 5 consecutive days.

This type of care allows the caregiver to rest. It also allows the caregiver to fulfill obligations that may take them out of town or provide time for healing, if they encounter a medical emergency.

Finally, burnout provides sufficient grounds to request Respite Care. Caregiver burnout and compassion fatigue can have serious health consequences for both caretaker and dependent. For that reason, Respite Care is available to offer a much-needed break.

4. In-Patient Care

At times, it may be necessary for a patient to be treated in a clinical setting, such as a contracted hospital, contracted nursing facility, or an in-patient facility. In-patient care usually lasts 8 days or less.

With In-Patient Care, our goal is to get the patient’s symptoms under control so that they can return to at-home care.

Here are some symptoms which would warrant in-patient care:

• Severe acute pain that cannot be controlled outside a clinical setting
• Nausea and vomiting that cannot be controlled outside a clinical setting
• Respiratory distress requiring clinical intervention
• Continuous or complex wound care
• Seizures that are uncontrolled

Those are just some examples. There are other cases that necessitate In-Patient Care as well.

Golden Rule uses In-Patient Care facilities that offer peaceful, comfortable environments for patients. Homey, inviting settings and caring staff help patients to feel as “at home” as possible while they are under In-Patient care.

Where We Provide Hospice Care

Hospice is not a specific location, but a specialized approach to care focused on keeping patients comfortable and surrounded by loved ones wherever they call home. Golden Rule Hospice delivers our comprehensive care services directly to personal residences, assisted living communities, memory care facilities, and nursing homes across 18 Metro Atlanta counties including Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb, Forsyth, and Cherokee. When complex medical crises or acute symptoms require short-term 24/7 clinical monitoring, we also coordinate care in contracted hospital settings and specialized inpatient units to ensure every patient receives continuous, compassionate support.