Home Health & Hospice Week

Longer stays maximize savings, researchers say.

Hospices should welcome a new study touting their ability to stretch the nation's Medicare funds.

Hospice care provides "significant" savings to Medicare, conclude researchers at Duke University. The study, "What Length of Hospice Use Maximizes Reduction in Medical Expenditures Near Death in the U.S. Medicare Program," was released Nov. 7.

The researchers found that hospice care reduced Medicare spending by an average of $2,309 per person compared to "normal care, which typically includes expensive hospitalizations near death."

Furthermore, longer hospice stays may be better, financially speaking.

"Often hospice is used for a relatively short time, but we found that patients who use the benefit for the last seven to eight weeks of life maximize cost savings to the program," said primary author Don Taylor of Duke's Sanford Institute of Public Policy in a press release.

The study found that for 70 percent of hospice patients, Medicare costs would have been reduced if hospice care had been used for a longer period of time. Hospice care has increased from seven percent of Medicare patients in 1990 to almost 30 percent in 2006.

For more information: The report is at www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02779536 --select "Volume 65, Issue 7."