"The High Cost of Dying": What Do the Data Show?

Assertions that we now spend too much of our medical dollar on the dying often imply a ready target for cost-containment efforts: frequency and intensity of expenditures at the end of life, especially for the aged. But available, although meager data suggest there has been neither a dramatic rise in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly. Health and Society 1984-01, Vol.62 (4), p.591-608
Main Author: Scitovsky, Anne A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Aged
Bioethics
Catastrophic Illness - economics
Costs and Cost Analysis
Death
Health care costs
Health Expenditures
Hospital costs
Hospitalization
Hospitals - utilization
Humans
Medicare
Middle Aged
Nursing homes
Older adults
Patient care
Physicians
Reimbursement
Terminal Care - economics
United States
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Summary:Assertions that we now spend too much of our medical dollar on the dying often imply a ready target for cost-containment efforts: frequency and intensity of expenditures at the end of life, especially for the aged. But available, although meager data suggest there has been neither a dramatic rise in the last 20 years in the use of the hospital as a place to die, nor of widespread use of "heroic" interventions on behalf of those who die. Rather, very sick patients receive intensive and expensive care; our ability to project rates of survival vs. terminal patient status warrants caution in approaches to medical economy.
ISSN:0160-1997
0887-378X
DOI:10.2307/3349838