Where to start › Planning ahead › Palliative care
Palliative care, plainly
Palliative care is not hospice. The Center to Advance Palliative Care defines it as medical care from specialists for people living with a serious illness. It focuses on relief from the symptoms and stress of the illness. The Center says it is right at any age and any stage, and can be given along with treatment meant to cure. Hospice is a separate Medicare benefit with its own rules. You need Part A. A doctor must certify that you are expected to live six months or less. And you accept comfort care in place of treatment meant to cure the illness you are dying from.[2]
What the team does
The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) describes a team with special training: doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains and other specialists. They treat pain, depression, shortness of breath, tiredness, constipation, nausea, loss of appetite, trouble sleeping and anxiety.[1]
In real life, a palliative team also does the organizing no one else has time for. They make sense of what several specialists are each doing. And they lead the talk where the patient's goals get said out loud. That is often when an advance directive stops being just paperwork. We are describing what these teams do. We are not citing a study that measured it.
The study people cite, and what it really showed
A doctor named Temel and her team studied 151 patients who had just learned they had a kind of lung cancer that had spread (metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer) and who were well enough to come to a clinic. They assigned patients at random to two groups. One got palliative care early, along with the usual cancer care. The other got the usual cancer care alone. At 12 weeks, the early palliative care group had a better quality of life. Their average score on a scale called FACT-L was 98.0 compared with 91.5 (P=0.03). Fewer had signs of depression (16% compared with 38%, P=0.01). Fewer got aggressive care at the end of life (33% compared with 54%, P=0.05). And they lived longer: the median was 11.6 months compared with 8.9, P=0.02.[3] That difference of 2.7 months is the number everyone quotes. (The P values show how likely it is that a result is due to chance. Smaller means less likely.)
Keep it at its true size. One disease, one cancer center, 151 patients, published in 2010, and what was tested was bringing in specialists early. It does not prove that palliative care helps people live longer with other illnesses. It does not prove that any local program will get the same result. What it does show is that comfort care and care meant to extend life were not opposites in this study. That is enough to make the referral worth asking for.
An earlier version of this page also said cancer guidelines call for a referral within about eight weeks of learning of an advanced cancer. It said a 2024 study found palliative care by phone or video works as well as in person. We could not confirm either this time, so both are out until we can.
Getting it, and the money question
Ask the doctor: "can we have a palliative care referral?" Families usually have to bring it up first.
CAPC says more than 1,700 hospitals with 50 or more beds have a palliative care team.[1] There are also clinics, home programs and care by phone or video, but not everywhere. What you can get depends on where you live, so ask the doctor what is really within reach.
On paying for it, we have corrected this page. It used to say Medicare Part B, Medicaid and most insurance cover palliative care like regular specialist care. Part B does cover doctor visits and outpatient care that are medically needed. But that is not the same as a set palliative care benefit where you know what you will pay. The Medicare pages we checked do not show one.[4] Palliative care is given in too many ways for one answer to fit: a hospital visit, a clinic, a home program, a service inside a Medicare Advantage plan.
So ask two questions, and don't assume. Ask the palliative program how it bills. And ask your own plan what it covers, be it Original Medicare, a Medicare Advantage plan, Medicaid or private insurance. Get the answers before the first visit, not after.
You can find providers at getpalliativecare.org/provider-directory.
Free local help. Your Area Agency on Aging will talk through your choices with you for free. Find yours through the federal Eldercare Locator at 1-800-677-1116 or eldercare.acl.gov (run by the Administration for Community Living).[5] To learn about the four kinds of local helpers and what each one does, see Who helps me locally.
Quick answers
What is the difference between palliative care and hospice?
The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) defines palliative care as medical care from specialists for people living with a serious illness. It focuses on relief from the symptoms and stress of that illness. CAPC says it "is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness, and it can be provided along with curative treatment." Medicare hospice is a specific benefit with its own conditions. You need Part A. A doctor must certify that you are expected to live six months or less. And you accept comfort care in place of treatment meant to cure the illness you are dying from. So hospice has rules for who qualifies and a form to sign. Palliative care does not work that way. [1, 2]
Does palliative care mean giving up on treatment?
No. CAPC's own definition says it can be given along with treatment meant to cure. One study assigned 151 patients at random. All had just learned they had a kind of lung cancer that had spread. Those who got palliative care early, along with their usual cancer care, did better. At 12 weeks they scored higher on a quality-of-life scale (98.0 compared with 91.5). Fewer had signs of depression (16% compared with 38%). Fewer got aggressive care at the end of life (33% compared with 54%). And they lived longer: the median was 11.6 months compared with 8.9. That is one disease in one place. It is not a promise for every illness. [1, 3]
How do you get palliative care and does Medicare cover it?
Ask the doctor for a referral. Families usually have to bring it up. CAPC says more than 1,700 hospitals with 50 or more beds have a palliative care team. There are also clinics, home programs and care by phone or video. On money, do not count on one answer for everyone. Ask the palliative program how it bills, and ask your own plan what it covers. It differs by where the care is given and by plan. An earlier version of this page said Medicare Part B covers it like any specialist, and we could not back that up. [1, 4]
Sources and what they support
Sources checked 2026-09-19 using AI-assisted editorial research. This is a source check, not a clinical review.
- Center to Advance Palliative Care, about palliative care. Supports the definition quoted here, that it is appropriate at any age and any stage and can be provided along with curative treatment, the composition of the team, the list of symptoms treated, and the figure of more than 1,700 hospitals with 50 or more beds having a palliative care team. CAPC is the specialty's own professional centre, not a payer, so nothing here establishes what any plan covers. Its hospital figure is a count, not a percentage; an earlier version of this page gave 72% of hospitals with 50+ beds, which we could not verify. This page does not compare palliative care with hospice.
- Medicare, hospice care coverage. Supports the hospice side of the comparison: the Part A requirement, certification of a life expectancy of six months or less, and accepting comfort care instead of treatment intended to cure the terminal illness. Cited here only to mark the boundary between the two; the hospice page sets out the benefit properly.
- Temel JS, Greer JA, Muzikansky A, et al. Early Palliative Care for Patients with Metastatic Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer. N Engl J Med 2010;363:733–742. Supports every figure quoted: 151 patients randomised, FACT-L 98.0 against 91.5 (P=0.03), depressive symptoms 16% against 38% (P=0.01), aggressive end-of-life care 33% against 54% (P=0.05), and median survival 11.6 against 8.9 months (P=0.02). The population is ambulatory patients with newly diagnosed metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer at a single centre, and the primary outcome was change in quality of life at 12 weeks — survival was a secondary finding. It does not establish a survival benefit in other diseases or from other models of palliative care.
- Medicare, the parts of Medicare. Supports what Part B covers in general terms — medically necessary physician and outpatient services. It is cited here for what it does not establish: there is no palliative-care benefit with uniform coverage or cost-sharing described on Medicare's own pages, which is why this page now tells you to ask the programme and your plan instead of promising Part B coverage.
- Administration for Community Living, Eldercare Locator. Supports the referral route to a local Area Agency on Aging. It does not arrange medical referrals.
Removed in this pass, for want of a source: that Medicare Part B, Medicaid and most insurance cover palliative care like ordinary specialist care; that about 72% of US hospitals with 50+ beds have palliative teams; that oncology guidelines recommend referral within about eight weeks of an advanced-cancer diagnosis; and that 2024 trial evidence found telehealth palliative care works as well as in-person.