Through the ground-breaking efforts of its world-renowned Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute, Mount Sinai is a leader in providing palliative care to patients experiencing the pain, symptoms, and stress of serious illnesses.

How Palliative Care Can Help

When you are confronting or battling a serious illness, you need answers, symptom relief, expertise, and support. At Mount Sinai’s Lilian and Benjamin Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute, our team of board-certified physicians, nurses, social workers, and licensed massage therapists makes sure that all your concerns are addressed.

The Lilian and Benjamin Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute is a national leader in the effort to improve healthcare for people facing serious illness. Our mission is to deliver the highest quality of care to such patients and their families, and to advance the field of palliative medicine through clinical, educational, and research initiatives.

Working closely with your primary doctor, we provide:

• Expert treatment of pain and other symptoms such as nausea and breathlessness
• Help in navigating the healthcare system
• Guidance with difficult treatment choices
• Inpatient and outpatient care
• Home care coordination and referral
• Detailed practical information and assistance
• Emotional and spiritual support for you and your family
• 24-hour availability
• Relief from distressing symptoms such as pain, shortness of breath, fatigue, constipation, nausea, loss of appetite, and difficulty sleeping
• Improved ability to carry on with your daily life
• Improved ability to tolerate medical treatments
• Better understanding of your condition and your choices for medical care

The Right Time for Palliative Care

Palliative care helps through all stages of illness. Our palliative care team can provide the greatest and most extensive assistance when it is consulted early in your case and work with your other doctors as they treat your illness.

Palliative Care and Hospice Care

Palliative care should not be confused with hospice care. Hospice programs are designed specifically for those approaching the last stages of life, and who are no longer receiving curative treatments. Palliative care programs care for patients in any stage of a serious illness. and care for patients receiving curative and life-prolonging treatments as well as those cared for traditionally by hospice programs.

How to Benefit from the Palliative Care Program at Mount Sinai

To receive help from our palliative care team, please ask your doctor for a referral. We are available to assist you whether you are in the hospital or at home.

Are Your Services Covered by Insurance?

All of our hospital services are covered by Medicare, Medicaid, Managed Care, and other insurance companies. Our outpatient programs are covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and many other insurance payers. Please contact us at (212) 241-1446 for specific questions regarding outpatient insurance coverage.

We Wish to Hear from You

We welcome questions from patients and family members.

Contributions to the work of the Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute make a tremendous difference. For example, contributions have allowed us to buy special foods for patients; to teach every medical student in our School of Medicine how to manage pain and other symptoms, and to help ensure that the next generation of doctors and nurses has the expertise we all need when we are sick.

Hertzberg Institute, MSSM, Box 1070, One Gustave L. Levy Place, New York, N.Y. 10029

Each tax-deductible gift is gratefully acknowledged and deeply appreciated.