8 JULY 2025ELDERCARE REVIEWBy John Mulder, Chief Medical Consultant for Hospice and Pallaitive Care, Holland HomeREVISITING HOSPICE: THE CONTINUED DRIVE FOR ACCEPTANCEJohn MulderThe contemporary hospice movement took root under the direction of Dame Cicely Saunders in the UK in the mid-1960s with a holistic, team-based approach to bringing comfort and dignity to those who were dying. Imported into North America a decade later, hospice proliferated after the adoption of hospice care as a Medicare benefit in the 1980s. The Medicare Hospice Benefit stipulates who can get hospice and outlines specific requirements for the hospice team. This team will include a medical director, nurse case manager, social worker, chaplain and volunteers. The goals are to assure patient comfort and dignity as they approach the end of life. The main criterion for hospice eligibility is that an individual has a terminal illness and that if the disease runs its normal course, death would be expected to occur within 6 months. So after four decades of hospice availability, how are we doing?There are currently over 6,500 Medicare-certified hospices in the United States serving over 1.7 million Medicare beneficiaries annually, costing $26 billion per year. Approximately 50% of all Medicare
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