Hospice Care
Hospice is a specific type of palliative care provided to individuals with a life expectancy measured in months, not years. Hospice teams provide patients and families with expert medical care, emotional, and spiritual support, focusing on improving patient and family quality of life.
To be eligible to receive hospice under the Medicare or Medicaid hospice benefit, adult patients must have a defined, time-limited prognosis (certified by two physicians as six months or less if the disease follows its usual course) and desire care focused on comfort, foregoing insurance coverage for further terminal disease-directed curative treatment efforts. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 contained provisions called pediatric concurrent hospice care allowing pediatric patients to receive disease-modifying treatment while also receiving hospice services.
What is Hospice?
Hospice is a specific type of palliative care provided to individuals with a life expectancy measured in months, not years. Hospice teams provide patients and families with expert medical care, emotional, and spiritual support, focusing on improving patient and family quality of life.
The Coalition enables a united and powerful advocacy voice across the full range of hospice and palliative care disciplines that brings together wisdom to vet issues and formulate responses.
Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care, 4th edition
Create a blueprint for excellence by establishing a comprehensive foundation for gold-standard palliative care, including evidence-based processes and practices for providing safe and reliable high-quality care for all people living with serious illness, regardless of their diagnosis, prognosis, age or where they live or receive care.
