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“The High Cost of Dying”: What Do the Data Show?
Author(s) -
SCITOVSKY ANNE A.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
the milbank quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.563
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1468-0009
pISSN - 0887-378X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0009.2005.00402.x
Subject(s) - psychological intervention , terminally ill , health care , medicine , health care cost , medical care , product (mathematics) , business , family medicine , nursing , economic growth , palliative care , economics , geometry , mathematics
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.