When is someone able to utilize hospice?

Typically, per Medicare, the criteria is that a hospice professional has evaluated you and, to the best of their knowledge, believes that you have six months or less to live. The other big part is that you have to be ready to no longer pursue curative treatment. That doesn't mean that if you got pneumonia you couldn't have treatment for that. But, for example, with cancer, you wouldn't continue doing chemotherapy or radiation or things like that.