(305 ILCS 60/5)
Sec. 5. Legislative findings. The General Assembly finds as follows:
(1) Each year, approximately 1,185 Illinois children
are diagnosed with a potentially life-limiting illness.
(2) There are many barriers to the provision of
pediatric palliative services, the most significant of which include the following: (i) challenges in predicting life expectancy; (ii) the reluctance of families and professionals to acknowledge a child's incurable condition; and (iii) the lack of an appropriate, pediatric-focused reimbursement structure leading to insufficient community-based resources.
(3) It is tremendously difficult for physicians to
prognosticate pediatric life expectancy due to the resiliency of children. In addition, parents are rarely prepared to cease curative efforts in order to receive hospice or palliative care. Community-based pediatric palliative services, however, keep children out of the hospital by managing many symptoms in the home setting, thereby improving childhood quality of life while maintaining budget neutrality.
(4) Pediatric palliative programming can, and should,
be administered in a cost neutral fashion. Community-based pediatric palliative care allows for children and families to receive pain and symptom management and psychosocial support in the comfort of the home setting, thereby avoiding excess spending for emergency room visits and certain hospitals. The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization's pediatric task force reported during 2001 that the average cost per child per year, cared for primarily at home, receiving comprehensive palliative and life prolonging services concurrently, is $16,177, significantly less than the $19,000 to $48,000 per child per year when palliative programs are not utilized.
(Source: P.A. 96-1078, eff. 7-16-10.)
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