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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) offers information to patients and families about medicare and medicaid hospice benefits. General information, types of hospice care and insurance coverage options can be found here. CMS also offers downloadable resources on their website available in Spanish. 

Hospice is a comprehensive, holistic program of care and support for terminally ill patients and their families. Hospice care changes the focus to comfort care (palliative care) for pain relief and symptom management instead of care to cure the patient’s illness. Patients with Medicare Part A can get hospice care benefits if they meet the following criteria: They get care from a Medicare-certified hospice; Their attending physician (if they have one) and the hospice physician certifies them as terminally ill, with a medical prognosis of 6 months or less to live if the illness runs its normal course; They sign an election statement to elect the hospice benefit and waive all rights to Medicare payments for the terminal illness and related conditions.

After certification, the patient may elect the hospice benefit for: Two 90-day periods followed by an unlimited number of subsequent 60-day periods. After the second, 90-day period, the recertification associated with a hospice patient’s third benefit period, and every subsequent recertification, must include documentation that a hospice physician or a hospice nurse practitioner had a face-to-face (FTF) encounter with the patient. The FTF encounter must document the clinical findings supporting a life expectancy of 6 months or less. All hospice care and services offered to patients and their families must follow an individualized written plan of care (POC) that meets the patient’s needs. The hospice interdisciplinary group establishes the POC together with the attending physician (if any), the patient or representative, and the primary caregiver.

More on hospice care, coverage, and levels of care are available in this resource. 

About the organization: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is a federal agency that provides health coverage to more than 160 million through Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Health Insurance Marketplace. CMS works in partnership with the entire health care community to improve quality, equity and outcomes in the health care system.