Posted Monday, June 21, 2021
As more states are legalizing medical cannabis, home health and hospices are striving to navigate patient’s usage for a drug which is federally illegal.
“Authors of a 2019 Journal of Palliative Medicine study posited that hospice clinicians would benefit from more education about how to address medical cannabis and better understand its efficacy and guidelines for use. A case study published in SAGE Open indicated that a female patient in Pennsylvania was weaned off of opioids (for which she had developed a dependence) through the use of medical marijuana. While those results were positive, this case involved a single patient and falls short of a large-scale study or clinical trial. The case study authors called for more research into the effects of medical cannabis.”
“There is a heavy load of oversight toward hospices on the part of CMS and other federal regulators for all kinds of reasons. If [cannabis use] were the reason, there really could be consequences for the hospice. There’s an element of fear and it also mostly just comes down to ignorance, because there is not yet a really robust body of clinical evidence as to how best to use or prescribe cannabis or its derivatives in hospice care.”
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For over 30 years, Corridor has partnered with home-based care providers, delivering powerful solutions to support the unique challenges of caring for patients in the home. Our team of operating executives, clinicians, and nationally renowned industry experts have run provider organizations and resolved the same challenges you face.
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