Hospice Care in Royal Oak, MI

Written and reviewed by the Lily Hospice clinical team.

A lot of Royal Oak hospice stories start the same way: a room at Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital at Thirteen Mile and Woodward, a doctor saying “no more treatment,” and a discharge planner asking which hospice you want. You have maybe a day to decide.

This page is for that moment, and for the quieter version, where your mother is still in her bungalow on the north end and you have noticed she is sleeping most of the day. Lily Hospice is family-owned and based in Troy, about 15 minutes away by Crooks, Rochester Road or I-75.

Coming home from the hospital to a Royal Oak house

Royal Oak’s housing is what makes hospice here different from, say, Rochester Hills. Much of the city was built between the 1920s and the 1950s: bungalows, Cape Cods and small colonials on narrow lots in Vinsetta Park, Northwood, the streets between Main and Campbell, the blocks near the Detroit Zoo. Bedrooms upstairs. One bathroom, often upstairs. Narrow stairways with a turn.

So the first question is where your father will sleep. Our nurse plans it with you on the admission visit: a hospital bed in the front room, a bedside commode, a shower chair if the bath is reachable. Medicare covers the equipment, delivered often the same day.

If he is being discharged from Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital, tell the case manager you want Lily. We coordinate the timing so the bed is in the house before the car pulls up. Nobody should come home to an empty living room and a folded-up set of instructions. For families in the condos and apartments along Woodward and near downtown, the plan is simpler: single-floor living and a team that comes to the door.

What each week looks like

A Lily nurse visits one to three times a week at first, more as needed, and adjusts medications for pain, breathing and restlessness. A hospice aide comes for bathing and skin care. A social worker handles paperwork you did not know existed and helps with family logistics, including a spouse who is exhausted and will not admit it. A chaplain is available. Volunteers can sit with him for a couple of hours so you can get to the Farmers Market on Eleven Mile. After a death, bereavement support continues for your family.

At any hour, you call (248) 955-5100 and a real person answers. When a nurse needs to come out, a nurse comes out.

Eligibility, in plain terms

Medicare hospice requires two things: a physician certifies a prognosis of six months or less if the illness runs its normal course, and the patient chooses comfort-focused care instead of treatment meant to cure the terminal illness. No requirement to be bedbound or to have exhausted every option, and hospice can be revoked at any time.

For the middle ground, when your mother is still seeing her oncologist at Corewell Health in Royal Oak and is not ready to stop, the
Pathways Palliative Program provides symptom control alongside treatment. It is billed through Medicare Part B visits, so the six-month certification does not apply. See
the Pathways Palliative Program.

What Medicare pays, and what it does not

Medicare Part A pays Lily directly. That covers the team, medications for pain and symptoms related to the terminal illness, equipment and supplies, short-term inpatient care, respite and bereavement support. You may owe up to $5 per prescription for symptom-control drugs and 5% of the Medicare-approved amount for inpatient respite. Medicaid and most private plans mirror the benefit. The benefit runs two 90-day periods, then unlimited 60-day periods, each recertified, with four levels of care: routine home care, continuous home care during a short crisis, inpatient respite (up to five consecutive days per occurrence) and general inpatient care. Details: medicare.gov; the National Alliance for Care at Home.

What it does not pay for: round-the-clock custodial care at home, or facility room and board.

The Royal Oak version of “who is caring for whom”

Royal Oak has become a young city, which changes the shape of caregiving. Often it is a daughter in her forties on Vinsetta Boulevard bringing her mother in from a farther-out suburb, or a couple in their thirties setting up a hospital bed for a father-in-law in the finished basement. Or, still very often, a widow who has lived in the same house since 1971 and will not leave it.

Each looks different, and the plan should too. Inpatient respite, up to five consecutive days, matters for the daughter with a full-time job and school pickups. The widow needs a nurse who checks on her as much as on her husband. We build the plan around who is actually in the house.

Resources near Royal Oak

• Royal Oak’s senior community center on Marais, for meals, programs and transportation.
• Area Agency on Aging 1-B in Southfield, for in-home services and the MI Choice Medicaid waiver.
• Oakland County Veterans’ Services in Pontiac, for VA benefits including Aid and Attendance. Lily’s Veteran Advisory Committee and Veteran Rapid Response program are at our veterans page; we are working toward VA Community Care Network participation. Lily is family-owned, not veteran-owned.
• Our articles at our resources on recognizing when it is time.

Why Royal Oak families call Lily

We are 15 minutes up the road, family-owned, Medicare-certified and ACHC-accredited. A real person answers every hour of every day. Our Journey Program brings virtual reality experiences to patients who can no longer get out, whether that is a Lake Michigan shore or a cathedral in a country they have not seen since childhood. Read more at
why families choose Lily.

How to reach us from Royal Oak

Our office is at 2125 Butterfield Dr, Suite 299, Troy, MI 48084, about 15 minutes away via I-75. Most families never make the drive. Call, and we come to you.

Nearby: Hospice care in Troy and our Oakland County hub.

Frequently asked questions

My father is being discharged from Beaumont tomorrow. Is that enough time? Usually, yes. Call us today. We will contact the case manager, arrange the certification, and work to have equipment in the house before he arrives.

Does hospice mean stopping all medications? No. Comfort medications continue. Medications that no longer help are reviewed with you and your physician; nothing is stopped without a conversation.

Can he keep seeing his own doctor? Yes. Your father’s physician can remain the attending physician and work with our team.

Talk to us

Call (248) 955-5100 and a real person will answer, day or night. Or reach us at our contact page. Lily Hospice serves Royal Oak from our office in Troy.