General provisions

1. A new hospice program is subject to certificate of need review pursuant to North Dakota Century Code chapter 23-17.2. 2. The department must be notified in writing when a change of ownership, operation, location, or when discontinued or addition of a new service in a hospice program is contemplated. 3. The hospice program shall provide physician services, nursing services, medical social services, counseling services, bereavement services, volunteer services, home health aide and homemaker services, and short-term inpatient care. Two of these service must be provided directly. Direct services are those services provided by hospice program employees or volunteers. All other services may be provided through written contract or written agreement. 4. Nursing services and physician services shall be routinely available twenty-four hours a day seven days a week, as may be required in accordance with the hospice program service plan. 5. The home care component must be the primary form of care, and must be available on a part-time, intermittent, regularly scheduled basis, and on an on-call, around-the-clock basis according to patient and family needs. 6. Short-term general inpatient care must be provided only in licensed hospitals or licensed skilled nursing facilities. If feasible, inpatient care must closely approximate a homelike environment and provide overnight family visitation within the facility.