Treating those with a terminal illness is never easy. In the healthcare arena there are different opinions on how much to spend on end-of-life care and how to approach the patient.
A recent article in The New York Times describes these vast differences. The reporter explains that "the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, one of the nation's most highly regarded academic hospitals, has earned a reputation as a place where doctors will go to virtually any length and expense to try to save a patient's life."
The article gives an example of the disparity in cost depending on where you seek treatment. Different healthcare systems have different mindsets on what to do and how to care for these patients. The article points out that:
According to the Dartmouth end-of-life analysis, Medicare pays about $50,000 during a patient's last six months of care by U.C.L.A., where patients may be seen by dozens of different specialists and spend weeks in the hospital before they die. By contrast, the figure is about $25,000 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., where doctors closely coordinate care, are slow to bring in specialists and aim to avoid expensive treatments that offer little or no benefit to a patient.
Critics say Dartmouth's analysis may be skewed because it only takes into account patients who die. Therefore it is difficult to know if it makes sense to spend more on one case than another.
What do you think? How should end-of-life care be handled? Should we do all the tests we can no matter what the expense? Post your comments below.
Email this post to a friend. Click on envelope below.
