Centers for Medicare and Medicaid list eligibility requirements and benefits as following:
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.
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.
The Medicare hospice benefit includes these items and services to reduce pain or disease severity and manage the terminal illness and related conditions.
Medicare may pay for other reasonable and necessary hospice services in the patient’s POC. The hospice program must offer and arrange these services
Medicare makes payments based on 1 of 4 levels of hospice care:
A patient elects to get hospice care at home and isn’t getting continuous home care. A patient’s home might be a home, a skilled nursing facility (SNF), or an assisted living facility. Routine home care is the level of care provided when the patient isn’t in crisis.
When both of these apply:
A patient elects to get hospice care in an approved inpatient facility for up to 5 consecutive days to give their caregiver a rest.
A patient elects hospice care in an inpatient facility for pain control or acute or chronic symptom management, which can’t be managed in other settings.
