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Hospice Care Saves Medicare an Average of $2,309 per Hospice User,New Study Shows

Findings of a major new study of hospice care in America show that hospice services save money for Medicare and bring quality care to patients with life-limiting illness and their families. The new study from Duke University appeared in the October 2007 issue of the professional journal “Social Science & Medicine.”

Study highlights show:
• Hospice reduced Medicare costs by an average of $2,309 per hospice patient.
• Increasing the length of hospice use by just three days would increase savings due to hospice by nearly 10 percent, from around $2,300 to $2,500 per hospice user.
“ Hospice helps people live with dignity, comfort, and compassion and brings needed support to family caregivers – to know definitively that it provides a cost savings to Medicare is an additional benefit,” said Barbara Merritt, Director of KRMC Hospice.

“Given that hospice has been widely demonstrated to improve quality of life of patients and families...the Medicare program appears to have a rare situation whereby something that improves quality of life also appears to reduce costs,” writes lead author Don H. Taylor, Jr., assistant professor of public policy at Duke’s Sanford Institute of Public Policy.

The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization reports that 1.3 million patients received hospice care across the U.S. in 2006. Approximately 35 percent of all who died in the U.S. were under the care of a hospice program. Locally, KRMC Hospice provides care for more than 250 patients a year. Hospice is not a place but a philosophy of care that provides pain management, symptom control, psychosocial support, and spiritual care to patients and their families. This study is a landmark independent research effort, not only because it shows cost savings for hospice utilization, but because it also addresses research flaws and questionable analyses in previous hospice cost studies.

For additional information contact Jamie Taylor, Director of Development and Public Relations for KRMC at 928/757-0664. Hospice information is also available from NHPCO’s Caring Connections at www.caringinfo.org or by calling the HelpLine at 800-658-8898

 

Kingman Regional Medical Center provides a full range of health and wellness services, including a beautiful wellness and fitness center, a primary care physician practice (Cerbat Medical Center), advanced medical programs in cardiology, cancer, and rehabilitation, and home health and hospice care. KRMC has 213 licensed beds and is Joint Commission accredited. The hospital employs over 1,200 employees, 150 volunteers, and 100 physicians/ allied health professionals who embrace our hospital's non-profit mission of "Serving Our Community with Compassion and Commitment." We are also honored to serve as a teaching hospital in affiliation with Midwestern University to train doctors specializing in family practice, dermatology and emergency medicine.