Benefits of Palliative Care

How to Find Palliative Care

Palliative care can be provided at a hospital, an assisted living facility, a nursing facility or at home. There are a number of ways to find a doctor who specializes in palliative medicine:

• Tell your personal doctor or specialist you are interested in palliative care and ask for a referral.
• If you are in the hospital and are being seen by a hospitalist - a doctor who coordinates care for people in the hospital - ask whether palliative care might be helpful. Many hospitals have doctors who specialize in palliative medicine on staff.
• Find out about the availability of palliative doctors in your area by using our doctor finder.

To help you evaluate palliative care providers, you may wish to review the chart from this Journal of the American Medical Association article. Although it is written for health care professionals, it contains a wealth of useful information that you may want to discuss with your doctor.

Learn more about state-by-state information regarding access to palliative care.