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Vixen1 Asked May 2021

Can Social Security cut you off from hospice? Mom is in late stage cancer and is 90. Someone said it could happen after 6 months?

funkygrandma59 May 2021
Your mom will not be cut off from hospice. Please, with everything else you have going on and to worry about, don't let that be one of the things. My husband was under hospice care for 22 months in our home. He just had to be reevaluated every so many months. With your mom in late stage cancer, that will not be an issue, so just enjoy whatever time you have left with her.
And like others have said, your moms hospice care is covered under her Medicare 100%, not her Social Security.

BarbBrooklyn May 2021
Vixen, how is your mom doing?

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97yroldmom May 2021
The first hospice benefit period is 90 days. For a beneficiary to elect hospice initially, two physicians—a hospice physician and the beneficiary’s attending physician—are generally required to certify that the beneficiary has a life expectancy of six months or less if the illness runs its normal course.
If the patient’s terminal illness continues to engender the likelihood
of death within 6 months, the hospice physician can recertify the patient for another 90 days and for an unlimited number of 60-day periods after that.

Here is a link that explains in more detail.

https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Medicare-Fee-for-Service-Payment/Hospice

AlvaDeer May 2021
Hospice and the MD are responsible to re-evaluate after the requisite 6 months.Most qualify for another 6 months. This is paid for by medicare, not by SS.

BarbBrooklyn May 2021
Hospice is funded by Medicare if you are over 65, not Social Security.

One of the criteria for Hospice USED to be "death can reasonably be expected in 6 months with no curative treatments". Those criteria have changed.

Most Hospice organizations will approve you for 6 months and re-evaluate at that time.

Some folks "graduate" from Hospice. A great many get approved for an extension. Many get approved for many extensions.

Call your Hospice social worker and ask them to go over this with you. If mom has late stage cancer, she is not going to get " cut off".

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