Going Home on Hospice from the Hospital: A Guide for Metro Detroit Families
Updated September 2026. Written and reviewed by the Lily Hospice clinical team.
When a hospital doctor mentions hospice, you can choose any Medicare-certified hospice that serves your home. The hospice evaluates, delivers a bed, oxygen if needed and comfort medications, and sends a nurse soon after arrival. Many patients in metro Detroit are home within a day or two.
Lily Hospice is an independent hospice and is not affiliated with any hospital or health system named on this page.
The word “hospice” often comes up in a hospital room, at a hard moment. A hospitalist, a specialist or a palliative care clinician says treatment is no longer helping. Then a case manager asks where the patient will go next. This page walks through what happens from there, in plain steps.
Guides for major metro Detroit hospitals
Each guide covers that hospital’s current name, address and main phone, and the communities patients usually go home to.
- Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital, Royal Oak
- Corewell Health Beaumont Troy Hospital
- Corewell Health Dearborn Hospital
- Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit
- Henry Ford St. John Hospital, Detroit
- Henry Ford Providence Southfield Hospital (and the Novi campus)
You choose the hospice
Medicare lets the patient choose any Medicare-certified hospice that serves their area. A hospital may suggest one, or hand you a list. Some health systems also run their own hospice. You can still name a different one. Compare every option in the metro Detroit hospice directory, and use how to choose a hospice for the questions to ask.
The steps to home
- Referral. Tell the case manager which hospice you chose, or call the hospice yourself.
- Evaluation. A hospice nurse reviews the records and meets the family. Two physicians confirm eligibility.
- Equipment. A hospital bed, oxygen if needed and supplies are delivered, ideally before the patient arrives.
- Medications. Comfort medications are delivered to the home.
- First visit. A hospice nurse comes soon after arrival, and one number reaches a nurse at any hour.
See how fast hospice can start, and how to start hospice this weekend if discharge falls on a Friday.
Before you leave the hospital
Ask which medications continue and which stop. Ask whether oxygen is needed for the ride, and who arranges transport. Ask whether a do-not-resuscitate order for home is signed, if that is the wish. If home will be assisted living or a nursing facility, read how hospice works in a facility. The hospice benefit does not pay facility room and board.
How Lily helps
Lily Hospice is family-owned, Medicare-certified and ACHC-accredited, based in Troy. We serve Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties. A real person answers at any hour. Evaluation is usually within 24 hours, and admission is often the same day. Hospital professionals can refer a patient here.
Common questions
Can a patient go home on hospice directly from the hospital?
Yes. The hospice can evaluate in the hospital. It can then admit at home on the day of discharge, once the physician order and consents are in place.
Do we have to use the hospice the hospital recommends?
No. You may choose any Medicare-certified hospice that serves your home.
Who pays for hospice after a hospital stay?
Medicare Part A covers the hospice team, medications, equipment and supplies related to the terminal illness. What Medicare covers in Michigan.
What if the patient cannot go home to a house?
Hospice can start in assisted living, memory care or a nursing facility. The facility provides daily care, and the hospice provides comfort care and family support.
Can we change hospices later?
Yes. A patient can change hospice providers once in each benefit period, and can stop hospice at any time.
Hospice isn’t giving up. It’s showing up.
Call (248) 955-5100. A real person answers, 24 hours a day.