Understanding The Medicare Hospice Benefit

Hospice care, often called "palliative care," seeks to manage the patient’s symptoms and pain without treating the underlying illness. This can be accomplished at a hospice unit or at home. Hospice teams help their patients accept a terminal diagnosis and fulfill their final wishes while maintaining their dignity and comfort. Also, hospice services sometimes include spiritual and emotional services and respite care.

Medicare covers hospice services which are "reasonable and necessary for the comfort and management of a terminal illness." This can include 

• Services provided by the patient’s own physician,
• Skilled nursing care,
• Medical social services,
• Home health aide services,
• Medical supplies, including drugs,
• Spiritual counseling,
• Respite care,
• Up to one year of bereavement care.

Medicare covers both hospice home care and hospice inpatient care in a hospital or skilled nursing facility under certain circumstances. However, the Medicare hospice benefit generally does not cover room and board for patients in skilled nursing facilities, so skilled nursing facility residents must have another source of payment for those charges.

Remember that the attending physician is the key. Anyone who may need hospice care and is wondering about the Medicare hospice benefit should contact his or her physician.