Opinion

You may not be thrilled to have “aged into” Medicare, but there’s a silver lining! Medicare offers significant support for communicating about your healthcare wishes and managing your end-of-life options. Medicare also covers the cost of health services meant to improve quality of life when a cure is no longer possible: hospice care during the last six months of a terminal illness, and palliative care, to help manage a serious or terminal illness with a longer term prognosis. As important – and not well used – is the fact that Medicare covers advance care planning discussions with your physician as part of your annual wellness check.