Someone in your corner: Understanding palliative care

By Ashley Puderbaugh

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, her oncologist mentioned palliative care almost in passing. He clarified it wasn’t the same as hospice, and she could pursue it alongside her treatment.

Since then, I’ve learned just how much earlier support could have helped. A palliative care team could have guided our family, advocated for her choices, and managed the side effects of treatment more closely.

I don’t know why we never connected with a palliative care physician. But I understand why so many families don’t. 

For many people, the phrase itself ends the conversation before it starts. They hear “palliative” and think “hospice.” That’s not unusual. Only about a quarter of patients with advanced cancer receive any palliative care in the final six months of life, and it typically arrives in the last month, according to a 2025 American Cancer Society study.

Understanding the overlap 

Palliative care is the broader category, with hospice as one part of it. Both aim to improve quality of life and relieve the symptoms of serious illness. Both bring together holistic care teams addressing physical, emotional, spiritual, and social needs.

The difference comes down to timing and curative treatment. Palliative care supports a patient through cure-based treatment. Hospice begins when the focus shifts from a cure to comfort. The palliative care team works alongside primary care and specialty physicians to manage symptoms, the disease itself, or the side effects of treating it. 

Palliative care also doesn’t require a terminal diagnosis. It’s for anyone, at any age, living with a serious illness — heart disease, COPD, kidney disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis. And it can start at any stage, even alongside treatment still aimed at a cure.

“In the ideal world, every time a patient gets a diagnosis of a life-limiting or chronic illness, they would get a palliative care consult,” says Nancy Hammel, nursing manager for Carousel and Community-Based Palliative Care at Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care. “A palliative care team would be involved in their care from the beginning, so that at each decision-making point, palliative care could be part of that conversation. Not to limit care or guide them in a particular direction, but to help them understand the impact of the decisions they’re making. The choice is always theirs.”

Research shows that patients receiving palliative care alongside standard treatment often live as long as, or longer than, those who don’t — while enjoying a better quality of life along the way. This isn’t a choice between comfort and survival; it can be both.

‘Fighting’ isn’t the only option

A serious diagnosis often leads to an instinct to fight it at all costs, and doctors are eager to help. But that drive can overshadow a key question: What will life actually look like on the other side of a given treatment?

“It always kind of bothered me that we didn’t fairly represent the other side of that coin,” Nancy says. “Yes, we can do this. But what are the odds that that’s going to be beneficial? What does life after that look like? What are the risks and side effects and potential outcomes?”

The healthcare system’s focus is, understandably, to prolong life and pursue every available option. That drive fuels real medical progress. But it can also leave patients feeling like anything short of trying everything means they aren’t fighting hard enough.

Many patients internalize that pressure, worried that questioning a doctor’s plan makes them a “bad patient.” Nancy says it isn’t fair to expect people to navigate those decisions alone. Palliative care exists to slow things down, giving patients and their families space to process, ask questions, and understand what a choice might mean, today and in the future.

A hub in the wheel

Specialists tend to see a patient through the lens of their own focus — the cardiologist watching the heart, the oncologist watching the cancer — and can lose sight of the whole person. Palliative care providers fill that gap, gathering all the information and translating it into something a patient and family can actually understand.

“One of the things palliative care can do is be the hub in the wheel,” Nancy explains. “We communicate with everyone involved in a patient’s care so the full picture comes together in one place for the patient and family. That’s a role we play frequently.”

Support close to home

For more than 45 years, Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care has been a leader in the field, providing hospice and palliative care at home through supportive care teams. KCH’s Community-Based Palliative Care program serves people who aren’t yet ready for hospice or are not choosing hospice care. Individuals who are managing an advanced illness can benefit from the program and patients typically stay on the program for two years or even much longer. Nurse practitioners work alongside a patient’s existing doctors and visit wherever the patient calls home: their house or apartment, assisted living, a skilled nursing facility, or the hospital — usually once a month, depending on needs.

Because KCH nurse practitioners see only four patients a day, they can notice changes quick check-ins might miss. That information gets relayed back to the patient’s physician. “We get to know the person, not just their disease,” Nancy says.

Patients can also leave a message for the care team any time, day or night, with a response by the next business day. Nancy says this support helps “catch things early so a patient doesn’t end up in the ER, or hospitalized, because of a symptom that could have been addressed at home.” That’s better for the patient and family, and it costs less than a hospital stay.

“Studies show a comprehensive palliative care program reduces costs in the last two years of life with serious illness,” Nancy says. “And at the same time, people tend to live longer. It doesn’t shorten people’s lives. It enhances the quality of their life. It’s a win-win.”

Sooner rather than later

Nancy says families rarely regret getting palliative care involved too soon. She hears the opposite far more often.

“I’ve never had a family say, ‘Oh, I went too soon,’” she explains. “I always hear, ‘I wish I would have known to get them involved sooner.’ Someone can always step back if they don’t need the extra support. But it makes a huge difference just knowing there’s somebody to call, someone who can help figure out who to call next, even if we’re not the ones who solve [the problem].”

Understanding palliative care doesn’t change a diagnosis. It changes what happens around it: the decisions, the conversations, and whether anyone has to face them alone. 

If you have questions about palliative care or hospice, we’re here to help. Submit a question online or call 816.363.2600 to speak with a member of our team, day or night.