When can someone go on hospice?

To be covered by Medicare, Medicaid (both of which cover hospice 100%) and most private health plans, the person's doctor needs to feel that he or she has 6 months or less to live--if the disease runs it's expected course. Some people live well beyond 6 months, and can stay on hospice as long as the disease continues to progress. To have hospice, the person also can no longer be having aggressive, curative treatment.

What usually happens as a disease progresses is often times doctors realize that aggressive treatment and extensive testing are no longer of benefit to the patient. At this time the doctor writes a referral for hospice. This allows hospice nurses and doctors to evaluate the patient to be sure the patient meets hospice standards. Hospice has different criteria for every disease but ultimately the hospice team must decide that the patient has less than six months to live to be approved for hospice services. This decision is based on the specific criteria for each individual disease, but since this can be hard to predict, many patients meet standards but end up living much longer; most of the time they remain eligible for hospice care.