Hospice care for a Medicare beneficiary with a terminal illness is covered under:

Why A is correct

Medicare hospice care is a Part A benefit for beneficiaries certified as terminally ill with a life expectancy of six months or less. It shifts the focus from curative treatment to comfort, palliative care, and support services, typically delivered at home. Hospice coverage includes nursing care, physician services, counseling, and medications related to the terminal illness. This is a distinctive Part A benefit.

Why the other options are wrong

• B) Hospice is a Part A benefit; Part B covers outpatient medical services but not the hospice program itself.
• C) Hospice is a Medicare benefit; Medi-Cal is a separate program, though it also covers hospice for its own enrollees.
• D) Part D covers prescription drugs, but the hospice program itself is a Part A benefit.

Memory hook

Hospice = comfort care at the end of life, and it is a Part A benefit.

Why A is correct

Medicare covers hospice care under Part A for beneficiaries with a terminal illness — certified as having a life expectancy of six months or less — who elect the hospice benefit. The benefit provides palliative and supportive care focused on comfort rather than cure: nursing services, medical social services, counseling, hospice aides, and pain management, with very low cost-sharing and little or no copayment for most services. Hospice is one of the Part A benefits enumerated in the senior health products objectives alongside inpatient care, home health, and skilled nursing facility care.

Why the other options are wrong

• B) Part B covers physician and outpatient medical services, not the hospice benefit package itself, so this option attaches the benefit to the wrong part.
• C) Medigap supplements Medicare cost-sharing; it does not independently provide the hospice benefit, so this option reverses the relationship between the programs.
• D) Hospice is a federal Medicare benefit; it is not limited to Medicaid, so this option wrongly confines it to the state program.

Memory hook

Hospice rides under Part A — the terminal-illness benefit that makes the end of life comfortable and affordable.