A bill signed into law by Gov. Butch Otter on Thursday will allow for a new kind of hospice facility in Idaho. And Kootenai County will be the first to benefit. Senate Bill 1339 sets the standards for the certification of hospice houses, or facilities housing clients receiving inpatient end-of-life care.

A bill signed into law by Gov. Butch Otter on Thursday will allow for a new kind of hospice facility in Idaho.

And Kootenai County will be the first to benefit.

Senate Bill 1339 sets the standards for the certification of hospice houses, or facilities housing clients receiving inpatient end-of-life care.

The legislation was prompted by the need for construction standards for Hospice of North Idaho's inpatient facility in Coeur d'Alene, which will be the first hospice house in the state.

"Because we have no statutes in Idaho that dealt with oversight (of this kind of facility), we needed to adopt one," said Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d'Alene, who helped draft the bill with Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d'Alene. "All I saw this bill doing was providing a means for the local hospice organization with their plans, and I was happy to be part of it."

Under the new law, hospices will only be required to be Medicare certified to own and operate an inpatient hospice house, which differs from traditional hospice facilities providing care at patients' homes.

Without the new law, hospices could only take on inpatient services if they acquired a hospital or skilled nursing facility license, which would incur burdensome overhead costs and procedural requirements, said Paul Weil, executive director of Hospice of North Idaho.

"If we didn't have this legislation, we would have had to build our facility as a hospital, because in Idaho, that would have been the only other alternative," Weil said. "That would have been even more expensive and really unnecessary, because hospitals for the most part focus on a different kind of care than a hospice inpatient facility."

Finally armed with the $4 million to build the planned hospice home on Prairie Avenue, Weil said he has been working to get the legislation for about four years.

The delay was due to waiting for Medicare to finish retooling its hospice house standards, he said, which include larger rooms and easy emergency escape access for patients receiving palliative care.

Weil feels relieved to finally have the legislation signed, he said, adding that he believes the lack of standards for hospice homes is the reason the state hasn't seen any before.

"It's been a challenge to design a hospice house and not be 100 percent sure what standards you're building them to," he said with a chuckle.

Hospice houses are intended for end-of-life patients whose pain and symptom management can't be managed at home, he said.

Hospice of North Idaho has already been providing inpatient hospice care at Kootenai Medical Center. Weil knew a separate hospice home was necessary as demand increased.

"KMC has four end-of-life rooms, but they're being utilized more and more and more to the point that it is necessary to create more beds," he said. "What Hospice of North Idaho has been doing more and more is setting up around-the-clock care teams to care for these people at home. It's fine if you only have one patient, but if you have two, three, four or five patients at one time, it's really hard on our resources."

The new hospice house, scheduled to start its 10-month construction in early June, will initially have nine rooms, with the ability to expand to 14.

Rooms will be large enough to accommodate visiting family members, Weil said, with additional beds for visitors to stay overnight. There will also be common rooms for family to take a break.

"Hospice houses really do become an important part of the health care system, because they provide an environment that is very supportive of both the person who's dying, as well as the family," Weil said.

The state legislature was very supportive of the legislation, Goedde said.

"It's always good to see something like this move through the process in a timely manner," he said. "It's so often you get an idea and it takes more than one year to get it through, but this was something recognized as a benefit from the gitgo."