Study: Hospice care provides major Medicare savings

Study: Hospice care provides major Medicare savings 
Medical Xpress; by Peter Dizikes, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 10/24/24 
Hospice care aims to provide a health care alternative for people nearing the end of life, by sparing them unwanted medical procedures and focusing on the patient's comfort. A new study co-authored by MIT scholars shows hospice also has a clear fiscal benefit: It generates substantial savings for the U.S. Medicare system. ... In recent decades, hospice care has grown substantially. That growth has been accompanied by concerns that for-profit hospice organizations, in particular, might be overly aggressive in pursuing patients. There have also been instances of fraud by organizations in the field. Yet, the study shows that the overall dynamics of hospice are the intended ones: People are indeed receiving palliative-type care, based around comfort rather than elaborate medical procedures, at less cost.
Editor's note: This study limited its data to for profit hospice agencies. That said, its results cannot be miscontrued to provide any type of comparison between for profits and non profits, in that data from non profits was (apparently) not examined.