Medicare cost in matched hospice and non-hospice cohorts

摘要: Hospice care is perceived as enhancing life quality for patients with advanced, incurable illness, but cost comparisons to non-hospice are difficult make. The very large Medicare expenditures given during the end of life, combined pressure on spending, make this information important. We sought identify differences between who do and not elect receive Medicare-paid hospice benefits. introduce an innovative prospective/retrospective case-control method that we used study 8,700 from a sample 5% entire beneficiary population 1999-2000 associated 16 narrowly defined indicative markers. For majority cohorts, mean median costs were lower enrolled in care. shorter duration until death. important terminal medical conditions, including non-cancers, receiving time death, appears be longer