A hospice aide is a trained aide who gives hands-on personal care to people receiving hospice care at the end of life.
Federal hospice rules treat the role as its own job, with set qualification routes, training hours, supervisory visits and reporting duties.
O*NET lists hospice aide among the titles home health aides hold, and this guide explains the work, the settings, the requirements and the pay.
What is a hospice aide?
A hospice aide is the hospice team member who delivers day-to-day hands-on personal care to patients receiving end-of-life care.
Federal hospice rules define the role in 42 CFR 418.76, which sets the qualifications Medicare hospice aides must meet.
Under those rules, a registered nurse on the hospice interdisciplinary group assigns each aide to a patient.
The rule lists the aide duties as hands-on personal care, simple procedures as an extension of therapy or nursing, help with ambulation or exercises, and assistance with medications ordinarily self-administered.
That last item matters.
The rule says assistance with medications the patient ordinarily takes without help, not administration.
Hospice aide is a recognized title in the labor data too.
O*NET lists Hospice Aide among the sample titles for home health aides, alongside Caregiver, CNA and Home Care Aide.
Is a hospice aide the same as a hospice CNA?
Searchers use hospice aide and hospice CNA for the same role, and this board routes both titles to the same listings.
The federal rules say hospice aide; CNA is the credential an aide may bring to the job.
One of the four federal qualification routes is completing a state-approved nurse aide training and competency evaluation program and holding current good standing on the state nurse aide registry.
The other routes are a hospice aide training and competency program, a competency evaluation program, or a qualifying state licensure program.
So CNA certification is a route into the role, not the definition of it, and hospice CNA is best read as a job posting title for a credentialed hospice aide.
O*NET reflects the overlap: it lists Hospice Aide and CNA among the sample titles for home health aides.
What does a hospice aide do on visits?
Hospice aide work is visit work: an RN assigns the aide to the patient, the aide provides the personal care on that assignment, and the aide reports changes in the patient's needs to an RN.
The federal duty list is hands-on personal care, simple procedures as an extension of therapy or nursing, help with ambulation or exercises, and assistance with medications ordinarily self-administered.
What fills a visit comes from each patient's plan of care and the RN's assignment; the federal rule sets the categories of help, not a fixed visit script.
The aide must report changes in the patient's medical, nursing, rehabilitative and social needs to an RN, and complete records per hospice policy.
Reporting is not paperwork overhead.
The rule makes the aide's observations part of how the hospice tracks the patient's changing needs.
Federal rules also set the oversight cadence: a hospice RN must make an on-site visit at least every 14 days to assess the aide's care, plus an annual on-site visit observing each aide performing care.
The supervising nurse evaluates the aide against outcome criteria, including following the plan of care, creating successful interpersonal relationships with the patient and family, competency with assigned tasks, infection control compliance, and reporting changes in condition.
Our research found no federal rule setting how many visits an aide makes per day and no verified caseload figure for hospice aides, so staffing is employer-specific.
Where do hospice aides work?
The rules that define the role are written for hospices: 42 CFR 418.76 sets the qualifications Medicare hospice aides must meet.
The federal supervision rule describes home visiting, because an RN must make an on-site visit to the patient's home at least every 14 days to assess the aide's care.
Hospice aides sit inside the combined home health and personal care aide group in federal labor data.
That group's largest employer industries in 2025, per BLS, were:
- Individual and family services — 51%.
- Home healthcare services — 23%.
- Residential intellectual and developmental disability facilities — 6%.
- Continuing care retirement communities and assisted living — 6%.
Our research does not quantify how hospice caseloads divide between private homes and facility settings, so ask each hiring hospice where its patients live and how much of the aide schedule is travel.
What makes hospice aide work emotionally different?
The assignment is built around patients receiving care at the end of life.
Relationships are not a soft extra here.
The supervising nurse's federal evaluation criteria include creating successful interpersonal relationships with the patient and family.
BLS notes that some aides in the combined home health and personal care group stay with one client on a long-term basis or for a specific purpose such as hospice care.
Part of the emotional weight is in what the aide notices, and the rule makes reporting it a duty: changes in the patient's medical, nursing, rehabilitative and social needs go to an RN.
Grief comes with the setting: hospice patients are at the end of life.
Ask in the interview how the team supports staff after a death.
Our research found no verified burnout or turnover figure for hospice aides specifically.
What do you need to work as a hospice aide (overview)?
For Medicare hospice aides, the federal hospice rule sets the qualification routes in 42 CFR 418.76(a).
The four routes are:
- A hospice aide training and competency evaluation program
- A competency evaluation program
- A state-approved nurse aide training and competency evaluation program, with current good standing on the state nurse aide registry
- A qualifying state licensure program
Training totals at least 75 hours of classroom and supervised practical instruction, with at least 16 classroom hours coming before at least 16 hours of supervised practical training.
Aides must also receive at least 12 hours of in-service training in each 12-month period.
BLS frames the employer split: aides working in certified home health or hospice agencies must complete formal training and pass a standardized test, while private agencies that do not receive federal funds may have other requirements that vary by state.
There is also a voluntary specialty credential.
HPCC's Certified Hospice and Palliative Nursing Assistant (CHPNA) requires 500 hours of hospice and palliative nursing assistant practice in the most recent 12 months, or 1,000 hours in the most recent 24 months, under RN supervision.
Initial CHPNA certification cost $280 for non-members or $190 for HPNA members as of October 12, 2026, and it is not a federal requirement.
Confirm the requirements before you enroll
How much do hospice aides make?
BLS has no wage series that isolates hospice aides: OEWS publishes no separate figure for hospice aides, live-in aides or resident care aides.
The closest available group is home health and personal care aides, published only combined under code 31-1120.
In the May 2025 OEWS release, that combined group numbered 4,305,810 workers with a median wage of $17.21 an hour and $35,800 a year.
Read that figure as a proxy for the aide occupation as a whole, not a hospice-only wage.
For medians broken out by state, see aide pay by state.
Find hospice aide jobs
For Medicare hospice aides, the federal routes call for completed training, demonstrated competency and — on the nurse aide route — current good standing on the state registry.
The demand backdrop is BLS's own projection: employment for home health and personal care aides is projected to grow 18% from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average occupation.
When you are ready, browse hospice aide jobs on a board that lists only senior and home care work.
And if you run a hospice, hiring hospice aides? Post a job to put the opening in front of the caregivers, CNAs, aides and nurses browsing senior care work here.
Career information, not medical, legal or tax advice. Confirm hospice aide requirements with the hiring hospice and your state's nurse aide registry.