Home health is skilled, intermittent care to help you recover or stay stable at home. Hospice is comfort care for a terminal illness with a roughly six-month prognosis. CMS certifies 12,392 home health agencies and 6,943 hospices — different goals, different Medicare benefits.
The core difference
The two are often confused because both come to the home and both involve nurses. But they answer different questions: home health asks how do we help you get better; hospice asks how do we keep you comfortable when getting better is no longer the goal.
- Goal: recover or maintain function
- Skilled nursing, PT/OT/speech, aide visits
- Requires homebound status + a plan of care
- Time-limited around an episode of need
- 12,392 certified agencies
- Goal: comfort and quality of life
- Symptom control, nursing, social work, chaplaincy
- Requires a ~6-month terminal prognosis
- Includes family and bereavement support
- 6,943 certified hospices
Goal of care
Home health is restorative. A physician orders it after surgery, a hospital stay, or a change in condition, and it ends when the goals are met or the person is no longer homebound. Hospice is palliative by design: it begins when curative treatment for a terminal illness stops and the focus turns fully to comfort, dignity, and support for the patient and family.
Who qualifies
For Medicare home health, a person must be under a physician’s care, need skilled services on an intermittent basis, and be homebound. For hospice, two physicians generally certify a terminal illness with a prognosis of six months or less if the disease runs its expected course, and the person elects the Hospice Benefit in place of standard curative coverage for that illness.
What Medicare covers
Medicare home health covers skilled nursing, therapy, medical social services, and aide visits tied to the skilled need, with no copay for covered services and no daily limit while criteria are met. The Medicare Hospice Benefit covers the interdisciplinary team, medications for the terminal condition, medical equipment, short inpatient and respite stays, and bereavement support — a much broader comfort-care package, but only for the terminal illness.
Moving between them
Families often move from home health to hospice as a condition progresses, and the reverse can happen too: a person can leave hospice if they improve and no longer meet the prognosis, then return later. The two are points on a continuum of care delivered where someone lives, not rival services — which is why comparing the specific agency or hospice on quality matters.
Home health and hospice, by the numbers
Compare specific providers
Browse loaded certified home health agencies and hospices by state, with available CMS source and snapshot metadata on supported fields.
Browse hospice & home health data →Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between home health and hospice?
- Home health is skilled, intermittent care aimed at helping you recover or stay stable — nursing, therapy, and aide visits while you are homebound. Hospice is comfort-focused care for a terminal illness with a prognosis of about six months. CMS lists 12,392 certified home health agencies and 6,943 certified hospices.
- Can you get home health and hospice at the same time?
- Generally not for the same terminal condition. The Medicare Hospice Benefit replaces standard Medicare coverage for the terminal illness, and the hospice team coordinates that care. A person could in some cases receive home health for a separate, unrelated condition, but the two benefits are not meant to run in parallel for the same diagnosis.
- Does hospice mean giving up?
- No. Hospice shifts the goal from cure to comfort and quality of life. It provides pain and symptom management, nursing, social work, chaplaincy, and family support, usually wherever the person lives. People sometimes stabilize on hospice and can be discharged if their condition improves and they no longer meet the prognosis.
- Is home health or hospice covered by Medicare?
- Both are, under different rules. Medicare home health covers skilled, intermittent care for a homebound patient under a physician's plan of care, with no copay for the covered services. The Medicare Hospice Benefit covers comfort care for a terminal illness, including medications related to the terminal condition and bereavement support for the family.
- Where does hospice care take place?
- Most hospice care is delivered where the person lives — a private home, an assisted-living residence, or a nursing home — with periodic team visits and on-call support. Some care is provided in inpatient hospice units for short, intensive symptom management. Of the 6,943 certified hospices, 4,790 operate as for-profit organizations.
- How do I compare specific home health agencies or hospices?
- Both have records on CMS Care Compare and are mirrored on Fonteum, with available source and snapshot metadata displayed on supported fields. Home health agencies carry quality-of-patient-care measures — 7,961 of them are rated — while hospices report family-experience and care-index measures. You can browse either by state.
Related
- What is hospice care? — the Medicare Hospice Benefit and who qualifies, in depth.
- Medicare home health care: what’s covered — the homebound rule and what skilled home health includes.
- Hospice vs. palliative care — comfort care with and without a terminal prognosis.
- Non-medical home care vs. Medicare home health — where custodial help fits next to skilled care.
- Home health agency quality data — per-agency CMS quality measures and provenance.
- Hospice availability by state — where certified hospices are concentrated and sparse.