What Diagnosis Qualifies for Hospice Care?
Updated December 2025
In this article:
We serve hospice patients with a variety of needs, and we have provided symptom management to those with a wide range of serious illnesses. By providing symptom relief for our patients, they’ve been able to spend more time living their days to the fullest, being surrounded by family and friends.
But you may wonder what diagnosis qualifies for hospice care or when should you contact Lower Cape Fear LifeCare?
We’ll answer these questions as well as outline what diagnosis qualifies for hospice care.
At Lower Cape Fear LieCare, we believe you deserve a hospice that truly provides personalized care that meets your needs. That’s why our team not only supports you, but provides compassion, expertise and peace of mind for the entire family. Would you like to know more? We invite you to contact us to learn more.
What Diagnoses Qualifies for Hospice Care?
There is no one diagnosis or category of diseases that qualifies a person for hospice care. While most people associate hospice care with cancer, it is not limited to cancer patients.
To qualify for hospice care, you must:
- Have a serious, life-limiting illness with a prognosis of six months or less to live
- Have decided to stop all curative measures; this means you are no longer treating the disease.
- Demonstrate a serious decline in function, including dependence on someone else to assist with basic activities of daily living
- Have a life-limiting condition that has deteriorated over the last four to six months
What Do You Mean by a Serious Illness?
What diagnosis qualifies for hospice care? There are quite a few. Following are some life-limiting conditions that will qualify you for hospice care:
Liver disease
Liver disease can lead to liver cancer and liver failure. In fact, chronic liver disease was the 12th leading cause of death for Americans in 2020. That year, 51,642 adults in the U.S. died from liver disease There are several conditions, such as obesity, high cholesterol and diabetes, that can contribute to liver disease. (For more information, visit the National Liver Foundation site.
Stroke
According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2020, an estimated 1 in 6 deaths from cardiovascular disease was due to a stroke. A stroke can dramatically affect your functionality, making it difficult to perform everyday tasks.
AIDS
Those with HIV/AIDS are susceptible to other serious diseases such as pneumonia, cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Due to the wide variety of symptoms they may exhibit, comprehensive care is necessary for this diagnosis that qualifies for hospice care.
Congestive Heart Failure
According to the Centers for Disease Control, an estimated 6.2 million Americans have heart failure. You may be at greater risk of developing the illness if you have:
- Diabetes
- High blood pressure
- Obesity
- Heart valve disorders
Other risk factors include smoking, a poor diet and lack of exercise.
End-stage renal (kidney) disease
Kidney failure can be caused by several chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, autoimmune disorders or nephrotic syndrome.
Cancer
This is one of the most common diagnoses we see among hospice patients. When curative treatment is no longer sought, we step in with assistance in managing symptoms and providing help for the entire family.
According to the American Cancer Society, 1 in 3 women and 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives.
This stands for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Patients with COPD have breathing problems and airflow blockage. Roughly 16 million people in the U.S. have COPD. There is no cure for COPD. Patients in the end stage of this disease will find it increasingly difficult to breathe, experience chronic respiratory failure, and in certain cases, they may become delirious.
Parkinson’s disease
We go into detail about Parkinson’s disease and how we can help those with it in an earlier article. This disorder affects the brain and results in uncontrollable movements, shaking and difficulty with coordination and balance. As the disease progresses, those with Parkinson’s find it more difficult to complete the tasks of everyday living, and may even lose the ability to talk and walk.
Although Huntington’s disease is rare, it can have devastating effects on those who have it. This disease is caused by the breakdown of the brain’s nerve cells, which will eventually cause difficulty moving, problems with thinking and even increase the chances of developing severe depression.
Our hospice health care workers can help minimize some of the symptoms of Huntington’s disease so patients can live a life that is as full as possible.
Multiple sclerosis
This seriously disabling disease occurs when the body’s own immune system damages the sheath covering your nerves. This makes it difficult for your brain to communicate with the rest of your body.
In certain cases, those with multiple sclerosis may lose the ability to walk at all. It can also cause slurred speech, dizziness and extreme fatigue. There is no cure for multiple sclerosis, though its effects can be managed. This is one example of how our hospice care team can help minimize the symptoms of a serious disease.
Remember, as we mentioned earlier, the main hospice criteria is that the hospice patient must have six months or less to live and they have decided to no longer treat the disease, but allow it to “run its course.”
When Should I Contact Lower Cape Fear LifeCare?
Signs that it is time to contact hospice can occur when:
- The patient shows increased weakness and fatigue
- There is an increase in the number of visits to the emergency room
- There is consistent weight loss
- There is a decline in ability to take care of themselves, including eating, getting dressed or walking
- There is an increase in the number of falls that occur
Who Pays for Hospice?
Most private insurance companies will pay for hospice provided you meet the criteria outlined above. In addition, Medicare and Medicaid will pay for hospice. We encourage you to seek specific information from these government agencies to ensure you or your loved one meet all the qualifications.
Because we are a non-profit hospice, we are dedicated to treating anyone, regardless of their ability to pay.
How Do I Get Hospice Care?
We’ve made it simple for you or your loved one to get the services you need. Anyone can make a referral to hospice: doctors, neighbors, family members or even the patient themselves. All you have to do is fill out our online referral form. You can also call our patient access center at 800-207-6908.
What Do You Mean by a Serious Illness?
What diagnosis qualifies for hospice care? There are quite a few. Following are some life-limiting conditions that will qualify you for hospice care:
Liver disease
Liver disease can lead to liver cancer and liver failure. In fact, chronic liver disease was the 12th leading cause of death for Americans in 2020. That year, 51,642 adults in the U.S. died from liver disease There are several conditions, such as obesity, high cholesterol and diabetes, that can contribute to liver disease.
Stroke
According to the Centers for Disease Control, every 40 seconds, someone in the United States has a stroke. In addition, every 3 minutes and 14 seconds, someone dies of stroke.
A stroke can dramatically affect your functionality, making it difficult to perform everyday tasks.
AIDS
Those with HIV/AIDS are susceptible to other serious diseases such as pneumonia, cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Due to the wide variety of symptoms they may exhibit, comprehensive care is necessary for this diagnosis that qualifies for hospice care.
Congestive Heart Failure
According to the Centers for Disease Control, an estimated 6.2 million Americans have heart failure. You may be at greater risk of developing the illness if you have:
- Diabetes
- High blood pressure
- Obesity
- Heart valve disorders
Other risk factors include smoking, a poor diet and lack of exercise.
End-stage renal (kidney) disease
Kidney failure can be caused by several chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, autoimmune disorders or nephrotic syndrome.
Cancer
This is one of the most common diagnoses we see among hospice patients. When curative treatment is no longer sought, we step in with assistance in managing symptoms and providing help for the entire family.
According to the American Cancer Society, 1 in 3 women and 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives.
COPD
This stands for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Patients with COPD have breathing problems and airflow blockage. Roughly 16 million people in the U.S. have COPD. There is no cure for COPD. Patients in the end stage of this disease will find it increasingly difficult to breathe, experience chronic respiratory failure, and in certain cases, they may become delirious.
Parkinson’s disease
We go into detail about Parkinson’s disease and how we can help those with it in an earlier article. This disorder affects the brain and results in uncontrollable movements, shaking and difficulty with coordination and balance. As the disease progresses, those with Parkinson’s find it more difficult to complete the tasks of everyday living, and may even lose the ability to talk and walk.
Huntington’s disease
Although Huntington’s disease is rare, it can have devastating effects on those who have it. This disease is caused by the breakdown of the brain’s nerve cells, which will eventually cause difficulty moving, problems with thinking and even increase the chances of developing severe depression.
Our hospice health care workers can help minimize some of the symptoms of Huntington’s disease so patients can live a life that is as full as possible.
Multiple sclerosis
This seriously disabling disease occurs when the body’s own immune system damages the sheath covering your nerves. This makes it difficult for your brain to communicate with the rest of your body.
In certain cases, those with multiple sclerosis may lose the ability to walk at all. It can also cause slurred speech, dizziness and extreme fatigue. There is no cure for multiple sclerosis, though its effects can be managed. This is one example of how our hospice care team can help minimize the symptoms of a serious disease.
Remember, as we mentioned earlier, the main hospice criteria is that the hospice patient must have six months or less to live and they have decided to no longer treat the disease, but allow it to “run its course.”
When Should I Contact Lower Cape Fear LifeCare?
Signs that it is time to contact hospice can occur when:
- The patient shows increased weakness and fatigue
- There is an increase in the number of visits to the emergency room
- There is consistent weight loss
- There is a decline in ability to take care of themselves, including eating, getting dressed or walking
- There is an increase in the number of falls that occur
Who Pays for Hospice?
Most private insurance companies will pay for hospice provided you meet the criteria outlined above. In addition, Medicare and Medicaid will pay for hospice. We encourage you to seek specific information from these government agencies to ensure you or your loved one meet all the qualifications.
Because we are a non-profit hospice, we are dedicated to treating anyone, regardless of their ability to pay.
How Do I Get Hospice Care?
We’ve made it simple for you or your loved one to get the services you need. Anyone can make a referral to hospice: doctors, neighbors, family members or even the patient themselves.
All you have to do is fill out our online referral form. You can also call our patient access center at 800-207-6908.
How Hospice Meets Your Needs
Hospice care teams develop individualized plans of care based on each patient and family’s goals.
In this section of our article, Dr. Ted Winneberger, hospice physician, explains how hospice care meets those goals as life-limiting illnesses progress.
“The truth about hospice is our goal is to give a person whatever they want, as long as they want it, for as long as they can. Our hospice care services are designed to meet the needs of the ones you love,” he said.
“We tell people all the time: This is the time in your life where you get to eat your dessert before your vegetables, if that’s what you want,” he added.
We Provide Appropriate Food for Specialized Needs
Since a vast majority of hospice patients receive care wherever they call home, we encourage them to eat whatever they want. If a person has to be admitted to our inpatient hospice care centers and they have a special diet or special needs, we try to satisfy that to the best of our abilities.
Our family kitchen and our volunteers provide other supplemental things that people may want while they’re in one of our hospice care centers.
Hospice Care Services Also Understand the Importance of the “Little” Things in Life
Our goal is to do the best we can to manage the symptoms and minimize discomfort using the least medication interventions as possible. We also realize that it is often the simple pleasures in life that mean the most during this transition, and we want to make those available any time we can.
Does a hospice patient want a glass of wine with dinner? If that is special and memorable to them, then we encourage them to have a glass of wine with dinner.
If they are in a hospice care center, we’ll certainly do our best to get them one. Likewise, if all they want to do is eat ice cream, then we’ll let them eat ice cream as long as they want it.
We try to do the best we can to give hospice patients whatever they want.
When Can Hospice Care Services Begin?
Hospice gets involved when the person starts transitioning to end-of-life, and it’s something that’s very natural. There are several parts to this process:
The hospice patient will start sleeping more
By definition, this end-of-life transition is a period of time when the body can no longer replace the energy it uses. When the body senses that, the hospice patient will sleep more. Then, the body will begin looking for energy in some non-vital organ in order to keep the rest of it functioning.
The hospice patient loses interest in eating
Then, the body tells the stomach, I don’t have the energy for eating. So when your loved one seems to be hungry, but only takes a few bites and then loses interest, that’s a very natural occurrence.
We don’t want to force people to eat as part of our hospice care services because that’s counteractive to the natural process of what the body is telling them.
Our Hospice Care Services Encourage Patients’ Choices Over Their Menu
Once the body slows down, the patient sleeps more and loses interest in eating. This is a natural part of the transition process, and nothing changes that.
Therefore, when a hospice patient does show an interest in eating, our goal is to let that person eat and drink what they want for as long as they can and to encourage it.
Lower Cape Fear LifeCare Offers the Compassion and Comfort You and Your Loved Ones Need
Why choose LifeCare?
We have consistently demonstrated our dedication to our patients and their families. We’re also continuing to expand our support to ensure we’re meeting the changing healthcare needs of our community.
In addition, we meet or exceed the national average on the national caregiver’s survey.
Most people we speak with wish they had contacted hospice sooner. Therefore, we invite you to contact us today by calling 800.733.1476.
Hospice Is For Anyone
Hospice care supports people with any type of life-limiting illness, not just cancer. In the next section of this article, Dr. Kenneth Garm, hospice physician, explains how hospice care helps improve quality of life for patients with all types of life-limiting illnesses.
Who Is Hospice Care For? We Serve Anyone Who Qualifies
As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, many believe that hospice only serves cancer patients.
But why does this myth persist? And what’s the history behind hospice?
“Perhaps one reason that the myth that hospice is only for cancer patients persists is that hospice generally started by taking care of cancer patients, primarily in the last days of life,” he said.
However, hospice has grown–particularly over the last 15 years–and expanded to be more inclusive. This includes helping those who have any type of life-limiting disease.
Who is hospice care for? We mentioned some diagnoses earlier, but following is a brief review on the various conditions hospice patients have:
- COPD
- Pulmonary (lung) fibrosis
- ALS
- Parkinson’s disease
- Serious, life-limiting injuries
- End-stage kidney disease
- End-stage liver disease
- Congestive heart failure
- Stroke
- AIDS
- Multiple sclerosis
- Heart valve disorders.
The key is that hospice patients are at the point where they are no longer seeking curative treatment. Instead, the goal is to minimize discomfort and manage the symptoms of these diseases through compassionate care.
Items to Consider When Entering Hospice Care
We’ve already reviewed that when considering who is hospice care for, it is for anyone who has a life-limiting illness with six months or less to live. However, we recognize that the decision to go into hospice care is an individual one, and we’d like for you to take into account some issues.
Ask yourself:
If this disease is progressing and will ultimately be terminal, how aggressively do you want to treat it?
At what point do you want to emphasize the quality of your life?
We encourage anyone considering hospice to talk to the doctors who are treating them, to their family, and take some time to themselves to think about what they might want before choosing hospice care.
Lower Cape Fear LifeCare: Serving Hospice Patients with Grace and Dignity for Decades
Lower Cape Fear LifeCare has earned its stellar reputation by providing high quality comfort care to those who are facing life-limiting illnesses. We’re here for the entire family, offering bereavement care, specialized veterans’ services and inpatient hospice care centers for those whose pain and symptoms cannot be managed in a residential setting.
If you or anyone you know has a life-limiting illness, please give us a call at 800-733-1476. We’ll be glad to explain hospice care and answer any questions you may have.
We can talk to your doctor, and we can have you assessed for hospice care. We consider it a privilege to care for both the patient and their families during this challenging time on their journeys.
Key Takeaways:
- Hospice care is not limited to any single diagnosis; patients qualify based on a life-limiting illness, a prognosis of six months or less, and a decision to stop curative treatment.
- Many serious illnesses—including COPD, heart failure, kidney disease, cancer, Parkinson’s, liver disease, stroke, AIDS, Huntington’s disease, and multiple sclerosis—may qualify a patient for hospice when symptoms progress and daily functioning declines.
- Signs such as increased fatigue, weight loss, repeated ER visits, or reduced ability to perform daily tasks may indicate it’s time to contact hospice.
- Medicare, Medicaid, and most private insurers cover hospice services for eligible patients, and Lower Cape Fear LifeCare provides care regardless of ability to pay.
- Anyone can refer a patient to hospice—including family members, caregivers, physicians, neighbors, or the patients themselves—making access simple and immediate.
- Hospice care focuses on comfort, symptom management, individualized care plans, and honoring a patient’s choices, including food preferences and meaningful personal comforts.
- As the body naturally transitions near the end of life, increased sleep and reduced appetite are expected changes; hospice supports the patient through this process rather than forcing unwanted interventions.
- Hospice serves patients with a wide range of life-limiting illnesses—not just cancer—and has expanded significantly in the past 15 years to meet diverse needs.
- Choosing hospice involves personal reflection about treatment goals, quality of life, and how aggressively to pursue medical interventions as a disease progresses.
- Lower Cape Fear LifeCare provides comprehensive, compassionate support—including bereavement care, veteran services, and inpatient hospice centers—helping families navigate an emotional and important stage with dignity.
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Sources:
American Liver Foundation, https://liverfoundation.org/
American Psychological Association, “Grief: Coping With the Loss of Your Loved One,”https://www.apa.org/topics/families/grief
Centers for Disease Control, “Stroke Facts,” https://www.cdc.gov/stroke/data-research/facts-stats/index.html
Centers for Disease Control, “About Heart Failure,” https://www.cdc.gov/heart-disease/about/heart-failure.html
