can gangrene be a hospice diagnosis

[WDALEY]

pt has dry gangrene with assoc lower extremity pain no other real qualifiers

Looking for feedback. Thank you

[edmia, BSN, RN]

Well, it depends on why there is gangrene. What does the hospice MD say? Usually, these patients are end stage cardiac or peripheral artery disease. Is there another diagnosis that will fit? ESRD? Late effect CVA? Functional decline otherwise? It's a tough call, but if they are declining amputation, then they will die of sepsis. I would put it on the hospice MD to give you a diagnosis.

[TammyG]

Edmia is right, it is an MD decision. We have many patients with some amount of gangrene, they almost all have diagnoses of vascular disease of one type or another.

[NC29mom, ASN, LPN, RN]

The hospice diagnosis is whatever the medical director/ attending physician agree is the terminal diagnosis which has a prognosis of 6m or less.

At the same time there are terminal diagnoses such as pulmonary, cardiac, dementia, neurological. I would suspect your other would be admitted under a cardiac dx since this is likely the underlying cause.