Report Shows More Medicare Recipients Getting Hospice Care

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia & WASHINGTON—The number of Medicare beneficiaries who used hospice services increased more than 4% in the most recent year of data, according to a new report. 

The National Alliance for Care at Home (the Alliance) published the 2025 edition of Facts and Figures, an annual report on key data points related to the delivery of hospice care, including information on patient characteristics, location and level of care, Medicare hospice spending, hospice provider characteristics and quality of care. It found that 1.91 million Medicare beneficiaries were enrolled in hospice care for one day or more in calendar year (CY) 2024, a 4.4% increase from 2023. 

Facts and Figures has been published annually for more than two decades. The Alliance thanked the Research Institute for Home Care (the Institute) for its collaboration and ongoing partnership on this data.  

The findings in this report reflect patients who received care in 2024, provided by hospices certified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and reimbursed under the Medicare Hospice Benefit. The Alliance said for the first time in the report’s history, this edition features new data sources—through collaboration with the Institute—to bring more current data than previously available. This report also includes a special interest section focusing on quality reporting and measurement in the hospice payment system.

The previous report showed the start of a return to pre-COVID-19 pandemic care patterns. The latest data indicate that this pattern has continued as payment and regulatory policies have returned to a non-emergency state. In 2024 the report shows, 1.3 million Medicare enrollees died in hospice, accounting for 53% of all Medicare decedents. The 2025 data feature the highest portion of decedents utilizing the hospice benefit yet and show progress toward enabling access to hospice for all terminally-ill Medicare beneficiaries who qualify.

“The Facts and Figures report has long been a foundational resource for the hospice community,” said Jennifer Sheets, CEO for the Alliance and president of the Institute. “Through the Alliance’s partnership with the Research Institute for Home Care, we are excited to introduce an expanded report for 2025 including new, exclusive data sources and look forward to continuing to expand the high-quality data available to Alliance members.”  

Select findings from this year’s report include the following:

• 1.91 million Medicare beneficiaries were enrolled in hospice care for one day or more in calendar year (CY) 2024. This is a 4.4% increase from 2023. 
• Of all Medicare decedents in CY 2024, 53.1% received at least one day of hospice care and were enrolled in hospice at the time of death. This is the third year of improvements and for the first time it has surpassed pre-pandemic levels. 
• In CY 2024, Medicare Advantage (MA) continued growing to cover a larger portion of the Medicare population. MA beneficiaries shift to traditional medicare to utilize the Medicare hospice benefit. A demonstration program ran from 2021-2024 to determine whether MA plans could effectively cover hospice; this program was ended early due to low participation and technical problems. 
• In CY 2024, 55.8% of white Medicare decedents used the medicare hospice benefit; all other race/ethnic groups were more likely to die outside of hospice, even after accounting for age. 39.4% of Asian American Medicare decedents and 40.5% of Black Medicare decedents enrolled in hospice. 41.2% of Hispanic and 40.2% of North American Native Medicare decedents used hospice in 2024. Utilization rates in all groups have recovered to or surpassed pre-pandemic rates. 
• Circulatory conditions were the most common with 29.8% of hospice stays. Neurovascular conditions (25.4%) and cancer (22.3%) followed. Combined with respiratory conditions (10.1%) and kidney disease (3.0%), these five condition groups account for over 90% of hospice stays. Principal diagnosis ICD-10 codes were used to group patients into broader categories. 
• Medicare paid hospice providers a total of $28.2 billion dollars for care provided in CY 2024, representing an increase of 10.1% over the previous year. This is slightly faster growth than other non-pandemic years largely and accounted for by a combination of increased cases and standard rate increases. 

The full 2025 Facts and Figures report is available for Alliance members online. The Executive Summary is available to the public.