Hospice

What it means

Hospice is a service, not a place — most of it happens at home. It provides nursing, medication, equipment and support for the family, and it treats symptoms rather than the underlying illness.

Choosing it means declining treatment aimed at curing the illness. It does not mean declining treatment.

Why it matters

Families very often start it far later than they wish they had, because it is understood as giving up rather than as changing what care is for.

It is a defined benefit under Medicare and most insurance, with its own eligibility rules — which is why the six-month framing exists at all.

When you are likely to meet it

• When a doctor raises it, or when a family is weighing whether more treatment is the right goal.
• When somebody is being discharged and the question is what happens at home.

Related terms

• Accelerated death benefitA payment from a life insurance policy to the insured person while they are still alive, when they are terminally or chronically ill.
• Advance directiveA document recording your medical wishes, and naming who should speak for you if you cannot.
• Discharge plannerThe hospital staff member responsible for what happens after a stay ends.
• Do-not-resuscitate orderA medical order saying that if the heart or breathing stops, no attempt at resuscitation should be made.
• Family and Medical Leave ActThe federal law giving eligible employees unpaid, job-protected leave to care for a seriously ill family member, or for their own condition.
• Hospice vs palliative carePalliative care can start at any time and alongside treatment. Hospice starts when the goal is comfort rather than cure.
• Living willA written statement of what medical treatment you would and would not want if you could not say so at the time.
• Palliative careCare aimed at relieving symptoms and stress, available at any stage of a serious illness.
• POLSTA medical order form covering more than resuscitation, signed by a clinician, meant to travel with the patient between home, hospital and care facility.
• Quality Improvement OrganizationThe independent body that reviews a Medicare discharge or a termination of cover, free and fast, at the patient's request.
• Respite careShort-term care that gives an unpaid family caregiver a break — a few hours, a day, or a stay of some days.
• Serious health conditionThe federal family leave law's definition of the illness that entitles an eligible employee to take protected leave.

Official sources

The authority this page describes, at the agency that publishes it. Sahvelo does not restate a rule from a secondary source.

• Medicare — hospice care (opens in a new tab)

Sahvelo guidance that uses this

• Medicare