The word “hospice” comes from the Latin hospes, which means “guest” and “host.” In the Catholic Church, hospice was a place for hospitality for the sick and dying as well as travelers or pilgrims. In 1957, Dame Cicely Saunders earned her medical degree and in 1963 proposed the idea of care specializing in tending to the terminally ill. In 1967, Dr. Saunders founded St. Christopher’s Hospice in London. In 1969 Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote On Death & Dying, a seminal work on the importance of home care versus institutional care for the terminally ill. The first hospice in the United States was founded in Connecticut in 1974, and in 1982 Congress passed a hospice Medicare benefit.
The overarching question if whether or not someone qualifies for hospice is “If this patient were to pass in the next six months, would his/her healthcare providers be surprised?” If the answer is no, there is a good likelihood a patient will qualify for hospice care.
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