As used in this article, the term:

(1) "Bereavement services" means the supportive services provided to the family unit to assist it in coping with the patient's death, including follow-up assessment and assistance through the first year after death.

(2) "Department" means the Department of Human Resources.

(3) "Hospice" means a public agency or private organization or unit of either providing to persons terminally ill and to their families, regardless of ability to pay, a centrally administered and autonomous continuum of palliative and supportive care, directed and coordinated by the hospice care team primarily in the patient's home but also on an outpatient and short-term inpatient basis and which is classified as hospice by the department.

(4) "Hospice care" means both regularly scheduled care and care available on a 24 hour on-call basis, consisting of medical, nursing, social, spiritual, volunteer, and bereavement services substantially all of which are provided to the patient and to the patient's family regardless of ability to pay under a written care plan established and periodically reviewed by the patient's attending physician, by the medical director of the hospice program, and by the hospice care team.

(5) "Hospice care team" means an interdisciplinary working unit composed of members of the various helping professions (who may donate their professional services), including but not limited to: a physician licensed or authorized to practice in this state, a registered professional nurse, a social worker, a member of the clergy or other counselor, and volunteers who provide hospice care.

(6) "Hospice patient family unit" means the terminally ill person and his or her family, which may include spouse, children, siblings, parents, and other relatives with significant personal ties to the patient.

(7) "License" means a license issued by the department.

(8) "Palliative care" means those interventions by the hospice care team which are intended to achieve relief from, reduction of, or elimination of pain and of other physical, emotional, social, or spiritual symptoms of distress.

(9) "Patient" means a terminally ill individual receiving the hospice continuum of services, regardless of ability to pay.

(10) "Terminally ill" means that the individual is experiencing an illness for which therapeutic intervention directed toward cure of the disease is no longer appropriate, and the patient's medical prognosis is one in which there is a life expectancy of six months or less.