What Supplies Does Hospice Provide?
Hospice provides the equipment, supplies, and medications related to the terminal illness and to keeping the person comfortable — commonly a hospital bed, oxygen, a wheelchair or walker, a bedside commode, wound care and catheter supplies, gloves, underpads, and medications for pain and symptom control. The hospice team coordinates delivery, usually through their own supplier, so the family generally does not have to source any of it. Equipment often arrives the same day services begin. The boundary that surprises families is that the benefit is tied to the terminal illness and related conditions — equipment or medication for an unrelated condition may fall outside it and route through regular coverage instead. Under the Medicare hospice benefit there may be a small copay for outpatient prescriptions for symptom control. And hospice does not provide continuous around-the-clock caregiving in the home.
What arrives, and when?
Usually the durable equipment first, often the same day, then a recurring delivery of consumables.
The equipment list typically includes a hospital bed, an over-bed table, a pressure-relieving mattress, oxygen and its associated tubing, a wheelchair or walker, a bedside commode, and a shower chair. What comes depends on the situation and on what the hospice team assesses as needed.
Nobody warns families about the practical part of this, so we will: a hospital bed is large, and it has to go somewhere. That usually means moving furniture out of a room, and deciding which room — often the living room rather than a bedroom, because it keeps the person near where the household actually is and makes the space workable for people caring for them. It is worth thinking about before the delivery van arrives, because that decision made under pressure is harder than it needs to be.
What supplies come on a recurring basis?
The consumables related to daily care, restocked on a schedule the hospice sets.
Wound dressings, catheter supplies, gloves, underpads, incontinence supplies, and similar items related to the terminal condition. The hospice nurse assesses what is needed and adjusts as things change.
Two questions worth asking at the first visit: what is the reorder cycle, and who do I call between deliveries if we run short. Supply needs can change quickly, and the answer to the second question is the one you will want at an awkward hour. The general method for keeping ahead of this is in tracking medical supplies at home.
What about medications?
Medications for symptoms related to the terminal illness are covered under the hospice benefit. Medications for unrelated conditions are handled separately.
Covered symptom management typically includes drugs for pain, breathlessness, anxiety, nausea, constipation, and secretions. Under Medicare there may be a small copay for outpatient prescriptions for pain or symptom control — ask your hospice what applies, since the specifics can change.
Many hospices also place a comfort kit in the home in advance: a small set of medications kept on hand so that if symptoms escalate at three in the morning, the treatment is already in the house rather than in a pharmacy that opens at nine. If one arrives, ask the nurse to walk you through what is in it and when each thing would be used — and then follow their instructions rather than anything on the internet, this page included. Administering these is a conversation with your hospice nurse, full stop.
What does hospice not provide?
Continuous caregiving, and generally anything unrelated to the terminal diagnosis.
This is the section families most need and least expect, so here it is without softening. Hospice visits are intermittent — a nurse several times a week, an aide for personal care some days, a social worker and chaplain as needed. The hours in between are covered by family, or by privately arranged help, or they are not covered at all.
People plan around this assumption without ever having stated it, and then reorganize their working lives in a hurry in week two. Ask directly at the admission visit how many hours a week of contact to expect, and plan the rest.
The other boundary is the unrelated-condition one. A long-standing condition that has nothing to do with the terminal diagnosis may continue through regular coverage rather than through hospice, which means two supply and prescription pipelines running at once. What that costs families is in what you have to buy yourself on hospice.
Who do I call, and when?
The hospice, first, for almost everything — including at two in the morning.
Hospice agencies provide after-hours availability, and this may be the single most useful paragraph on this page, because a great many families do not realize it and call 911 instead. That call sets in motion a chain of events — ambulance, emergency department, interventions — that may be directly contrary to the care plan everyone agreed to, and it happens at the worst possible moment to be explaining any of it.
Get the after-hours number at the admission visit. Write it on the refrigerator and put it in every phone in the house. Then call it when something changes, when symptoms escalate, when you are frightened, or when you simply do not know what to do. That is what the number is for and they expect to hear from you.
What should I ask before the first delivery?
Six questions, asked at the admission visit while someone from the hospice is sitting in your living room.
What equipment is coming and when. What supplies recur, and on what cycle. Which medications are covered under the benefit and which are not. Who do I call after hours. What are we expected to do between visits. And what happens if the situation changes — if symptoms escalate, or if we cannot manage at home.
Write the answers down while they are being given. Admission visits carry a great deal of information at a moment when nobody is at their best for retaining it, and having the answers on paper is worth more than remembering having been told.
None of the above is a substitute for what your hospice tells you about your situation — their supply list and their instructions are the authority, and this page is only meant to help you know what to ask.
Organized.health helps you organize your health information. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always follow your hospice team’s instructions, and talk to them about anything concerning your care.
Related: What do I have to buy myself on hospice? · How do I track medical supplies at home? · Organized.health for caregivers
