Does Medicare Part A cover hospice?
Medicare Part A covers hospice care for people who are terminally ill with a life expectancy of six months or less, once you choose comfort care over curative treatment.
What flips the answer
- Covered when
A doctor certifies a terminal illness with roughly six months or less to live and you elect the comfort-care benefit.
- Not covered when
You want continued curative treatment for the terminal illness — that's covered under regular Medicare, not the hospice benefit.
- Not covered when
The care is for a condition unrelated to your terminal illness — that's billed to regular Medicare rather than the hospice benefit.
The Part A hospice benefit applies when a hospice doctor and your regular doctor certify that you're terminally ill — generally a prognosis of six months or less if the illness runs its expected course — and you elect hospice, meaning you accept comfort-focused care instead of treatment aimed at curing the terminal illness.
Once elected, hospice covers a broad package for the terminal condition: physician and nursing care, medical equipment and supplies, drugs for symptom control and pain relief, aide and homemaker services, social work, counseling (including grief support for the family), and short-term inpatient or respite care.
Costs are minimal: you may owe a small copayment for outpatient prescription drugs for pain and symptom management, and a limited coinsurance for inpatient respite care. There's no deductible for the hospice benefit itself.
Hospice can be renewed. Certification runs in benefit periods (two 90-day periods, then unlimited 60-day periods) as long as the hospice doctor recertifies that you remain terminally ill. You can also stop hospice and return to regular Medicare coverage at any time.
That's the general answer. Yours is written in your actual policy.
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