Palliative care focuses on comfort and symptom relief and can be provided alongside curative treatment at any stage of a serious illness. Hospice is specifically for patients who have stopped curative treatment and have a physician-certified life expectancy of six months or less if the illness runs its normal course.
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Families often use these two terms interchangeably, but the distinction matters for both eligibility and what kind of care a patient receives: someone can receive palliative care for years while still pursuing treatment aimed at curing or managing their condition, while hospice specifically requires stepping away from curative treatment. Some Milwaukee-area providers, including Visiting Angels Milwaukee, describe offering 'end-of-life and palliative support care' as a distinct, non-hospice service line -- worth clarifying directly with any provider which specific service they mean when the word 'palliative' comes up, since it isn't automatically the same thing as hospice.
