Jun 2026
Hospice in America by the Numbers — 2026 Data Guide
How many Americans use hospice, how long they stay, where care happens, and how the industry has changed — sourced from CMS, NHPCO, and MedPAC.
1,013 providers across 12 counties — with federal patient-survey ratings, recent Google reviews, real homepage screenshots, and direct contact info. Free, no login, no paid placement.
Pick a region for a single page that lists every county we cover in it, with provider counts. From there you can drill into a county, then a specific city, then individual hospices. New regions are being added as we expand coverage.
Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Ventura — six counties from Ventura down to the Mexican border.
View Southern California directories →Sacramento plus the Bay Area peninsula — Santa Clara, Alameda, and San Mateo. Large health systems dominate, with smaller independent providers alongside.
View Northern California directories →Fresno and Kern (Bakersfield) — agricultural heartland with two major metros and a long roster of independent providers.
View Central Valley directories →Every provider is Medicare-certified. We pull data directly from the federal CMS Provider Data Catalog and refresh monthly. Every listing carries its CMS Certification Number (CCN) so you can verify independently.
When CMS publishes a CAHPS Hospice Survey rating, we show it — with the seven sub-scores (recommend, pain management, communication, etc.) on the cards that have data. 191 of our 1,013 providers carry Medicare-survey data.
For confidently-matched providers we surface Google reviews and a live homepage screenshot taken through a real headless browser. You can vet a hospice before you call — or compare three at once in our side-by-side modal.
We don't accept payment from hospices to be listed, ranked higher, or to suppress reviews. Order reflects data only — Medicare rating first, Google reviews as a tiebreaker. Read more about our methodology and sourcing.
Each county directory lets you search by name or city, filter by ownership type or star rating, sort by Medicare rating or Google reviews, and switch between a list view and a single map of every provider.
How many Americans use hospice, how long they stay, where care happens, and how the industry has changed — sourced from CMS, NHPCO, and MedPAC.
Plain-language definitions for the language you'll encounter when researching hospice care — palliative care, bereavement support, general inpatient care, CAHPS, and more.
A sobering look at how hospice oversight has failed — and what families should watch for when choosing a provider.
Yes. Medicare Part A covers the full cost of hospice care for eligible patients — doctor and nursing services, medical equipment, medications related to the terminal illness, short-term inpatient care, respite care for family caregivers, and bereavement support for the family. There is typically no out-of-pocket cost to the patient apart from small copays on outpatient drugs (capped at $5) and respite stays.
A patient becomes eligible for hospice when two physicians — the attending physician and the hospice medical director — certify a life expectancy of six months or less if the illness runs its normal course. The patient must also choose to focus on comfort care rather than curative treatment for the terminal illness.
There is no fixed limit. Medicare hospice benefits are split into an initial 90-day period, a second 90-day period, and then unlimited 60-day periods, each with a face-to-face recertification by the hospice team. Patients who improve can be discharged and re-enrolled later if their condition declines again.
Most hospice care happens wherever the patient calls home — a private residence, an assisted-living community, a skilled nursing facility, or a hospice's own inpatient unit. Care is brought to the patient by an interdisciplinary team that includes nurses, physicians, social workers, chaplains, aides, and volunteers.
More questions? See the glossary or our 2026 hospice statistics guide.