Financial Considerations

As with any other form of medical care, there is a cost. In the case of hospice, the cost is less than intensive hospital care, but hospice costs more than home health nursing care because more services are provided.

• How much is "covered" depends on what kind of insurance is available. If the patient has Medicare, the government has outlined what is available on the Medicare hospice benefit.
  
  
• All medications related to the terminal illness are paid for. This helps people who need high doses of morphine or other opioid drugs to control the rather intense pain that often accompanies the later stages of cancer, AIDS, and other debilitating diseases.