Hospice & palliative care

Choosing a Hospice in Illinois: Reading the Public Data

A hospice search in Illinois looks very different depending on where you start it: the Chicago metro can return a long list of competing agencies, while a rural downstate county might return only a few. This guide covers the national method for reading hospice quality data, plus what's specific to Illinois's licensing rules, its certificate-of-need law, and its Medicaid hospice benefit.

Last updated: July 2026

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How to Compare Hospices Anywhere in Illinois

Medicare's Care Compare tool lets you search by zip code anywhere in Illinois, from Chicago's lakefront neighborhoods to a rural county downstate, and pull up every Medicare-certified hospice serving that address, along with its CAHPS Hospice Survey scores and other measures reported through CMS's Hospice Quality Reporting Program 1Ref 1Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (2024).Hospice Quality Reporting Program.Supports that CMS runs a formal Hospice Quality Reporting Program that feeds the public measures shown on Care Compare.. The tool is built for exactly this kind of side-by-side comparison 2Ref 2Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (2024).Find Healthcare Providers: Compare Care Near You (Hospice).Supports using Care Compare to search and compare Medicare-certified hospices by location..

Three signals deserve more attention than the rest, wherever in the state you're searching: the CAHPS Hospice Survey's caregiver-reported ratings for communication and symptom management 3Ref 3Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (2024).CAHPS Hospice Survey.Supports what the CAHPS Hospice Survey measures, including caregiver-reported communication and symptom management., the hospice's live-discharge rate, and whether it is for-profit or not-for-profit. A separate guide on judging hospice quality explains what each one means and why it predicts the experience your family will actually have.

IDPH's Role Alongside Medicare Certification

IDPH — the Illinois Department of Public Health — runs the state-level inspection process every Illinois hospice goes through, independent of the federal survey CMS uses for Medicare certification. The two processes don't share a calendar: a hospice due for a state survey isn't necessarily due for a Medicare one, and passing one doesn't guarantee a clean record with the other.

If a hospice's care falls short, a complaint doesn't have to go only to Medicare's national complaint line — IDPH takes complaints about licensed hospices directly, a route that exists specifically because Illinois chose to layer state oversight on top of the federal minimum. It's a fair, ordinary question to ask an agency whether it has had a recent IDPH survey and what it found. IDPH's survey covers staffing, medication management, and documentation — broadly the same territory CMS reviews for Medicare certification, on the state's own inspection calendar.

Illinois's Certificate-of-Need Law Shapes How Many Agencies You'll Find

Illinois runs one of the more expansive certificate-of-need programs in the country, administered by the state's Health Facilities and Services Review Board, which reviews new health care facilities and services — including hospice programs — before they can open in a given planning area. That review process tends to produce a shorter, more stable list of hospices serving any one part of Illinois than in a neighboring state without this requirement.

A shorter list is not automatically a safer one. It still pays to read each agency's CAHPS Hospice Survey scores, ownership type, and live-discharge rate rather than assuming state review alone has done the vetting for you — the certificate-of-need process controls how many hospices can open, not how well any of them perform once they do.

Chicago Metro Versus Downstate: A Very Different Search

Illinois splits sharply between the Chicago metro, where a search on Care Compare can return a substantial list of competing hospices, and the state's downstate counties, many of them rural, where the same search might return only a handful, or agencies based an hour or more away. A hospice licensed to serve a downstate county sometimes covers an area the size of several Chicago suburbs combined, simply because the population is spread thin.

The collar counties ringing Chicago — DuPage, Lake, Will, Kane, and McHenry — sit in between: dense enough to support several competing hospices, but distinct enough from the city itself that an agency based in Chicago proper may not staff them as heavily as its own listing implies. If you're searching outside the Chicago metro, ask directly how many patients an agency currently serves in your specific county, not just whether the county falls inside its printed service area — a hospice can list a wide territory on paper while its actual visit frequency there looks very different from its coverage nearer its home office.

HFS and the Room-and-Board Gap Medicare Leaves Behind

HFS — Illinois's Department of Healthcare and Family Services — administers a state Medicaid hospice benefit that runs in step with Medicare's for most families, with one meaningful exception for someone in a nursing facility. There, a dually eligible resident can have Medicaid cover a room-and-board rate that the Medicare hospice benefit simply doesn't pay, passed through the hospice itself 4Ref 4Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (2024).Hospice Payments (Medicaid).Supports that Medicaid (Illinois HFS) can pay a room-and-board rate for a dually eligible nursing-facility resident on hospice, passed through the hospice, with rules that vary by state.. Because the mechanics of that payment vary state by state, it's worth confirming directly with HFS and the hospice's own billing staff rather than assuming 4Ref 4Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (2024).Hospice Payments (Medicaid).Supports that Medicaid (Illinois HFS) can pay a room-and-board rate for a dually eligible nursing-facility resident on hospice, passed through the hospice, with rules that vary by state..

At home, none of this applies — there's no facility bill to split, and Illinois Medicaid hospice coverage there looks essentially like the Medicare benefit.

Why Ownership Status Belongs on Your Checklist

Ownership status is printed right on Care Compare's listing, and it correlates with real differences in what families actually experience. Nationally, for-profit hospices score lower than not-for-profit ones across every domain the CAHPS Hospice Survey measures — communication, symptom management, whether the caregiver would recommend the hospice 5Ref 5Anhang Price R, Parast L, Elliott MN, et al. (2023).Association of Hospice Profit Status With Family Caregivers' Reported Care Experiences.Supports that family caregivers report worse experiences across CAHPS Hospice domains at for-profit hospices compared with not-for-profit hospices. — and a live discharge from a for-profit hospice is more likely to end in a burdensome transition, meaning the hospital instead of home 6Ref 6Peer-reviewed cohort study (see article) (2024).Hospice Readmission, Hospitalization, and Hospital Death Among Patients Discharged Alive from Hospice.Supports that burdensome transitions after a live discharge from hospice are more likely at for-profit hospices and after short stays..

That's not a rule for ruling agencies in or out; some for-profit hospices in Illinois perform well, and a not-for-profit label is not a guarantee. But given how much the certificate-of-need process has already shaped your options, glancing at ownership before you sign costs nothing and adds real information.

The Conversation to Have Before You Sign

A hospice's brochure will always look reassuring; a direct conversation tells you more. Ask exactly who is on call overnight and the realistic time to reach a home in your part of the state, whether that's a Chicago neighborhood or a downstate county seat. Ask what happens the moment pain or breathlessness outpaces what a scheduled visit can manage, and how a transfer to inpatient-level care actually gets triggered.

Save one question for last: what happens if the patient improves and no longer meets hospice criteria. A hospice that can explain live discharge without stumbling has clearly walked a family through it before — and that fluency is itself worth noting.

Common questions

Yes, indirectly. Illinois runs a certificate-of-need program through its Health Facilities and Services Review Board that reviews new hospice programs before they can open, which tends to keep the list of agencies serving any one area shorter than in a state without this requirement. That doesn't guarantee quality, so it's still worth checking each agency's CAHPS scores and live-discharge rate.

Illinois hospices are licensed and inspected by the Illinois Department of Public Health, separately from Medicare certification. A complaint can go to IDPH in addition to Medicare's own complaint process. Ask the hospice directly for its written complaint procedure, which every Medicare-certified agency is required to provide.

Often, yes. A Care Compare search downstate can return far fewer agencies than the same search in the Chicago metro, and a hospice's printed service area may not reflect how often it actually visits a specific rural county. Ask an agency directly how many patients it currently serves near you before assuming coverage matches its listed territory.

Largely, yes. Illinois's Department of Healthcare and Family Services runs a hospice benefit that mirrors Medicare's comfort-focused coverage and coordinates with Medicare for people who have both. Its most useful extra applies in a nursing facility, where Illinois Medicaid can help cover room and board, a cost Medicare's hospice benefit does not pay.

Not automatically. Nationally, for-profit hospices score lower on average across CAHPS Hospice family-experience measures and have higher rates of burdensome live discharge, but individual agencies vary. Check the specific hospice's own CAHPS scores and live-discharge rate on Care Compare rather than deciding by ownership type alone.

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When Choosing Can't Wait

—Pain, breathlessness, or agitation that isn't controlled while you're still comparing agencies
—A hospital discharge is set for the next day or two and no hospice has been chosen yet
—The patient's condition is changing quickly and further research feels unsafe to delay

If symptoms are severe and no hospice team is in place yet, call the current treating physician or go to the nearest emergency room rather than waiting to finish comparing agencies.

This article explains how to evaluate hospice agencies using public data; it is not medical advice and does not recommend a specific hospice. Licensing rules and Medicaid coverage details change and vary by circumstance — confirm current specifics with the Illinois Department of Public Health, Illinois HFS, and any hospice you are considering.

References

1.Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (2024). Hospice Quality Reporting Program. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). link ✓Supports that CMS runs a formal Hospice Quality Reporting Program that feeds the public measures shown on Care Compare.
2.Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (2024). Find Healthcare Providers: Compare Care Near You (Hospice). Medicare.gov / Care Compare (CMS). link ✓Supports using Care Compare to search and compare Medicare-certified hospices by location.
3.Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (2024). CAHPS Hospice Survey. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). link ✓Supports what the CAHPS Hospice Survey measures, including caregiver-reported communication and symptom management.
4.Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (2024). Hospice Payments (Medicaid). Medicaid.gov (CMS). linkSupports that Medicaid (Illinois HFS) can pay a room-and-board rate for a dually eligible nursing-facility resident on hospice, passed through the hospice, with rules that vary by state.
5.Anhang Price R, Parast L, Elliott MN, et al. (2023). Association of Hospice Profit Status With Family Caregivers' Reported Care Experiences. JAMA Internal Medicine. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2022.7076 ✓Supports that family caregivers report worse experiences across CAHPS Hospice domains at for-profit hospices compared with not-for-profit hospices.
6.Peer-reviewed cohort study (see article) (2024). Hospice Readmission, Hospitalization, and Hospital Death Among Patients Discharged Alive from Hospice. JAMA Network Open (PMC11099680). PMID 38753329 ✓Supports that burdensome transitions after a live discharge from hospice are more likely at for-profit hospices and after short stays.

6 sources, numbered by first appearance. General health information, not medical advice. AI-assisted editorial content — citations link their sources. Editorial policy

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