Understanding Hospice Care & Medicare
Hospice care provides comfort, dignity, and support when curative treatment is no longer the goal. Medicare covers hospice for eligible beneficiaries — including most equipment and medications related to the terminal diagnosis.
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Understanding the Medicare Hospice Benefit
What Medicare Part A covers, how to elect hospice, revocation rights, costs, and common misconceptions.
How to Choose a Hospice Provider
Questions to ask, what to look for, CMS Hospice Compare, accreditation, and red flags to avoid.
Hospice Equipment: What Medicare Covers
DME covered under hospice, who pays, how it's delivered differently from Part B, and what happens after discharge.
What Is Hospice Care?
Hospice is a philosophy of care — not a place. It focuses on comfort, pain management, and quality of life for people with a terminal illness and a life expectancy of six months or less if the disease runs its normal course. Hospice can be provided at home, in a hospice facility, nursing home, or hospital.
The hospice team typically includes physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, home health aides, and volunteers. They support both the patient and their family — including bereavement counseling after death.
- Pain and symptom management
- Nursing visits (as needed)
- Medical equipment and supplies
- Medications for comfort
- Spiritual & emotional support
- Family caregiver education
- Bereavement support (13 months after death)
- Curative treatment for the terminal diagnosis
- 24/7 continuous nursing (unless crisis care)
- DME unrelated to terminal diagnosis (billed to Medicare Part B)
- Treatments intended to cure, not comfort
Find a Hospice Provider Near You
Search our directory of Medicare-certified hospice agencies in your area. Compare services, accreditation, and quality ratings.