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Hospice Care
If you or a covered dependent is diagnosed as terminally ill with six months or less to live, you may be eligible to receive reimbursement for hospice care services. Hospices provide care in a setting designed to make the patient comfortable while still providing professional medical attention.
To be eligible for reimbursement, a hospice facility must offer a hospice program approved by Cigna Global Health Benefits. It must be either a hospital or a free-standing hospice facility that provides inpatient care or an organization that provides health care services in your own home.
Hospice services include:
  • Hospice room and board while the terminally ill person is an inpatient in a hospice;
  • Outpatient and other customary hospice services provided by a hospice or hospice team; and
  • Counseling services provided by a member of the hospice team.
  • These services and supplies are eligible only if the hospice operates as an integral part of a hospice care program, and the hospice team includes at least a doctor and a registered graduate nurse. Each service or supply must be ordered by the doctor directing the hospice care program and be:
  • Provided under a hospice care program that meets standards set by Cigna Global Health Benefits. If such a program is required by law to be licensed, certified, or registered, it must meet that requirement; and
  • Provided while the terminally ill person is in a hospice care program.
  • Hospice benefits also include eligible expenses for counseling services for the family unit, if ordered and received under the hospice care program. Benefits will be paid if:
    • On the day before the terminally ill person passed away, he/she was:
      • In a hospice care program;
      • A member of the family unit; and
      • A covered participant.
    • The charges are incurred within three months after the death of the terminally ill person.
This list is subject to change at any time.