Growing Pains for the Medicare Hospice Benefit.

For 30 years, the Medicare hospice benefit has played a key role in shaping end-of-life care in the United States. Authorized by the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, the benefit was meant to improve the dying experience for terminally ill beneficiaries and to reduce the intensity and cost of health care services at the end of life. After a slow start, hospice became an integral part of Medicare, and nearly half of all people who die while covered by Medicare now use the benefit before death. (November 2012)