Hospice
Comfort care at the end of life, at home or wherever she lives. The most generous benefit Medicare has, the least understood, and the one families most often start too late.
Official source the real list is public and we send you to it
What electing hospice actually does
Hospice is not a place and it is usually not a move. It is a benefit you elect, and the team comes to wherever your parent already lives — her own house, her assisted living apartment, her adult foster home.
Electing it does one specific thing: Medicare stops paying for treatment intended to cure the illness that is expected to end her life, and pays for everything that keeps her comfortable instead. Her hospice doctor and her own doctor both certify that she is terminally ill with a life expectancy of six months or less, and she signs an election statement before any hospice service begins.
Six months is not a deadline. The benefit runs as two 90-day periods followed by an unlimited number of 60-day periods, and it continues as long as the hospice medical director recertifies — after a face-to-face meeting — that she is still terminally ill.
| Covered | Not covered | |
|---|---|---|
| Care | Nursing, doctor services, aide visits, social work, counseling, and bereavement support for the family afterwards | Treatment intended to cure the terminal illness and related conditions |
| Things | Drugs for pain and symptom management, medical equipment and supplies related to the terminal illness | Drugs intended to cure the illness rather than control symptoms |
| Where she lives | A short-term inpatient or respite stay, when the hospice team arranges it | Room and board — at home, in a nursing home, or in a hospice inpatient facility |
| What you pay | Nothing for hospice care from a Medicare-approved hospice | Up to $5 per prescription for outpatient pain and symptom drugs; 5% of the approved amount for inpatient respite, never more than the inpatient deductible |
The third row is the one that surprises families, and it is worth being blunt about: the benefit is generous about care and silent about rent. If she is in assisted living, hospice does not pay the assisted living bill. If she is at home, there is nothing to pay.
One more rule worth knowing before it catches you: once hospice starts, care for the terminal illness has to be given or arranged by the hospice team. An emergency room visit, a hospital admission or an ambulance ride that the team did not arrange, and that is not unrelated to the terminal illness, can leave you with the whole bill. The instruction is simple and it is the hospice's own: call them first, at any hour.
The right nobody mentions: you can change your mind
The fear that stops families electing hospice is that it is a door that locks behind you. It is not. Under the federal rule, an individual or their representative may revoke the election at any time — a signed statement to the hospice, effective the day it is made or later, and no reason is required. Medicare coverage of everything that was set aside resumes, and she may elect hospice again for any later benefit period.
She may also change hospice provider once in each benefit period, and change her attending doctor by signed statement. Neither costs anything and neither needs a reason.
Knowing this changes when a family is willing to start, and starting is the whole issue. The benefit is built around six months, and most of what hospice is good at takes longer than a few days to do.
Four levels of care, and the two you have not heard of
"Hospice" in ordinary conversation means the first of these. Medicare pays for four, and a family that knows the other three can ask for them by name.
- Routine home care
- The usual one: scheduled visits from the nurse and the aide, wherever she lives. Most hospice days are this.
- Continuous home care
- For a crisis at home — pain or symptoms that are not under control. Nursing care for as much as 24 hours a day, predominantly nursing rather than aide time, furnished only during brief periods of crisis and only as much as is needed to keep her at home. This is the level families most often do not know they can ask for.
- Inpatient respite care
- Short-term inpatient care provided only to relieve the people caring for her, occasional, and not for more than five consecutive days at a time. It exists for you, not for her, and it goes unused — one in four family caregivers reports being unable to attend to their own health.
- General inpatient care
- Pain control or acute symptom management that cannot be managed anywhere else, in an inpatient facility, until it can be.
What to ask a hospice
Every hospice below is certified by Medicare, which means it has been surveyed against the federal conditions of participation. That is a floor, not a recommendation. The questions that separate them are ordinary ones:
- Who answers at 2am, and are they yours? Ask whether the after-hours call reaches their own nurse or an answering service, and how long it takes for someone to arrive at the house.
- How often will we actually see the nurse and the aide? Ask for the usual visit frequency in the first two weeks, and what happens when it is not enough.
- Do you provide continuous home care, and when did you last? The second half of that question is the informative half.
- Where would inpatient or respite care happen? Some run their own unit; some contract with a hospital or a nursing facility.
- Do you serve where she lives? Coverage thins outside the metro areas, and it is better to find that out now than at 9pm on a Friday.
Every hospice Medicare certifies in Oregon
All 65 of them, from Medicare's own certified list, grouped by the same areas the rest of this site uses. Nobody paid to be here and nobody could.
Medicare publishes no service area for these, so this is grouped by where each one is — the county on its own certification record. 22 of Oregon's 36 counties hold one; if hers is not among them, the nearest is in a neighbouring county, and a provider just over a state line may serve her without appearing here.
We publish no rating for any of these, including Medicare's. Medicare scores some of these out of five stars. We do not put a score on a provider and repeating somebody else's is still a score on our page — so what is below is what each one is and what it offers, and the star rating is on Medicare's own site if you want it.
Portland metro 27 providers
Rural Oregon 15 providers
Eugene and Springfield 6 providers
Bend 6 providers
Salem 4 providers
Medford 3 providers
Grants Pass 2 providers
Corvallis 1 provider
Albany 1 provider
Where this comes from
- Medicare — Hospice care coverage — read 2026-08-16.
- CMS Provider Data Catalog — Hospice General Information — read 2026-08-16.
- 42 CFR 418 — Hospice Care (conditions of participation and election) — read 2026-08-16.