My mother was placed in "at-home" hospice with Capital Caring as the hospice provider. Her "at-home" was under skilled nursing at an assisted living/nursing home in DC where she lived for the past 3 years. She was not eligible for or considered imminent hospice when she returned from the hospital to her nursing care. She returned from the hospital to her nursing home on a Thursday afternoon. She was awake, alert, talking, responding (if you spoke loud enough as she was hard of hearing), eating, and drinking (with someone assisting her). The hospital's discharge plan was a low dose of Ativan and Morphine for some nervous agitation and mild pain. This is what she had been given at the hospital for the past five or six days. A Capital Caring Hospice nurse visited her the following Friday afternoon (for the first time) and changed her medicine all around. Most specifically, the nurse drastically increased my mom's morphine dose (if I am following the dosage notes correctly, it appears by 10x the hospital amount). No contact information for the nurse was given to us. On Saturday and Sunday, my brother and I visited mom, she could not be roused, was unresponsive to us, and could not eat or drink due to the increased Morphine. She could be roused a tiny bit in time for the next Morphine dose but not much else. There was absolutely no follow-up from Capital Caring to check how she was responding to the new dosages, I guess they don't "do weekends". She was not doing well. The new medicine protocol had turned her into a zombie. Sadly, my mother died extremely early Monday morning, before business hours when we had hoped to get ahold of someone/anyone at Capital Caring.
I truly feel like she was drugged to death by Capital Caring with the drastic dosage increase and no follow up care or check to see if it was appropriate or working. Yes, my mom was in hospice and she probably would have passed in the next six months - but not in the next three days (as she did) after being deemed by them as not imminent. I blame them for that gross negligence in care.
To make matters worse - Capital Caring was and has been completely uncommunicative since that only Friday visit. No one was with mom when she passed. No one called us as she worsened to let us know to come in that she was dying right then. After she passed, Capital Caring even debated with the nursing home that it was not their (Capital Caring's) responsibility to notify the family (um mom was under your care/purview at this point). It has been almost a month since her passing and no one from Capital Caring has ever once reached out to contact us or support the family. We have not heard from them since that initial Friday visit.
This is not the experience I had with hospice when my father passed away in DE. I have been completely shocked at their utter unprofessionalism and their unethical behavior. There was nothing "caring" at any point in our experience with Capital Caring. I strongly encourage you to avoid Capital Caring unless you actively want to hasten your love one's passing.
I would give negative stars if allowed. This place is abysmal. read more