Hospice care is a model of high-quality, compassionate care for people with a life-limiting illness.1 Treatment of the patient’s physical, emotional, and spiritual symptoms are cornerstones of hospice care.1 Hospice provides expert medical care, pain and symptom management, and emotional and spiritual support tailored to the patient’s needs and wishes using a team that includes a primary registered nurse, social worker, chaplain, volunteer, certified nursing assistant, and medical director.1,2 Through hospice, patients and families receive prescription medications, medical supplies (eg, dressing and incontinence supplies), durable medical equipment (eg, hospital bed, oxygen, and walkers), and nursing support that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. After the patient’s death, months of bereavement support is available to families.3 Hospice provides a truly comprehensive service to patients and families at the end of life. So why is the median length of stay on hospice services 24 days?1 Why would patients and families forgo receiving these compassionate and state-of-the-art services during such a stressful and challenging time? Because of myths and misconceptions about what Hospice is, what Hospice does, and what choosing Hospice means. Engaged healthcare professionals can help to correct these misconceptions and myths. Understanding the sources of these misconceptions is an important first step to correcting them. The first US hospice was established in 19741 to alleviate the suffering of dying patients. Since 1983, hospice benefits have become available to most US residents through Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance plans. According to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, in 2018 40% of patients enrolled in Hospice received less than 14 days of service, and 30% of those received less than 7 days.3 This is incongruent with the overwhelming data that supports most Americans’ preference to die at home or in a home-like setting, to receive adequate pain and symptom management, avoiding inappropriate prolongation of dying, achieving a sense of control, and strengthening their relationships with loved ones.5 The barriers to receiving Hospice care are complex and multifaceted.4 However, most of the barriers can be sourced back to misconceptions or myths about hospice held by patients and families, physicians, and other health care providers. One of the major misconceptions of hospice care held by patients and families is that hospice equals giving up hope. Jenkins et al4 found that patients and family members avoided hospice because of their desire to continue curative treatments, denial of the terminal illness or diagnosis, and lack of understanding regarding what hospice was. Lack of trust in the healthcare system and hesitancy to have strangers or hospice caregivers in the home were also noted barriers.4 Even when the patient and family are willing to consider hospice care, the primary physician can also present with major barriers. Like patients, physicians can hold inaccurate perceptions of hospice services. This is especially true in rural areas where physicians may have long-standing relationships with their patients and could be reluctant to ‘hand over’ the care of their patients to the hospice.4 Physicians are gatekeepers for hospice services. Tedder et al2 found that one of the largest barriers to hospice care was physicians’ difficulty in discussing terminal illness with their patients and a desire to continue curative care. Additional physician-related barriers included: lack of knowledge about what was included in hospice services, difficulty making a 6-month prognosis required for admission to hospice care, and fear of loss of control or contact with the patient after entering hospice.4 Physicians are not alone in perpetuating these myths and misconceptions about hospice. Nurses and other healthcare providers often have ‘stories’ that hospice hastened someone’s death. As a hospice provider for many years, there were several recurring myths regarding hospice care. A common myth is that hospice hastens death. A typical ‘story’ might go like this: My friend’s mother was just fine, then she went on hospice. The hospice team came in and took over, they stopped giving my friend’s mother her regular medications and didn’t let her eat. They gave her morphine and she died a few days later. While this myth is common, empirical studies suggest a greater percentage of patients in hospice, compared to patients with the same diagnosis in standard care, tend to live longer.6,7,8 Hospice provides education and allows patients to remain autonomous in decisions on their care.9 Chronic disease is managed, and acute infections are treated.3 Hospice leads to increased quality of life at the end of life. It also facilitates healthy grieving for families. Some patients or families resist hospice care until the last few days or even hours of life. These patients died of the disease process, not the admission to hospice care. Getting to the truth about what hospice is and what services it provides to patients and families begins with education. Informed patients and families make better decisions on plans of care.2 Healthcare providers must receive education about how to talk with their patients, families, and the communities they touch about the realities of end-of-life processes and to help people make informed choices about how they want to live their final months. First, the providers must receive education on hospice care through prelicensure curriculums and postlicensure continuing education.2 Next, providers must learn how to communicate with their patients about noncurative goals of care in life-limiting illness.9 The Serious Illness Conversation Guide (SICG) is a tool that gives the provider a framework for discussing end-of-life goals of care.10 With this preparation healthcare providers will be able to engage in advanced care planning discussions with their patients at the point of diagnosis of a life-limiting illness and to assess their understanding of hospice care and address myths and misconceptions.2 Hospice does not mean giving up hope, but instead changing the focus of care to comfort, support, and autonomy. Research is clear, patients experience a better quality of life, and family caregivers have reduced burden with hospice care.2 The myth and misconception of hospice being equated with giving up or losing hope need to change so patients can benefit from the care hospice provides and experience a good quality of life until the day they die.9 At the end of life, the hospice interdisciplinary team can make the patient more comfortable and the experience less traumatic for the family.1 Hospice is the opposite of giving up. Hospice gives the patient a voice and allows them to decide on a plan of care that is aligned with their values.3,10 Links to Helpful Resources Center to Advance Palliative Care – https://www.capc.org/ National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization – https://www.nhpco.org/