Palliative Care Is about the Life That’s Left, Not the End of Life

October 24, 2017

(Medscape) – It’s a common confusion and misconception. The short answer is that all hospice is palliative care, but not all palliative care is hospice. That is the elevator speech version. The more nuanced version is that the Medicare Hospice Benefit, which was written into law about 25 years ago, was designed to reduce the number of people who would use it. They put strict eligibility criteria around access to hospice.