• Yujun Zhu and Susan Enguidanos.
• Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
• J Hosp Med. 2022 Jun 1; 17 (6): 437444437-444.

IntroductionHealth care costs remain high at the end of life. It is not known if there is a relationship between advance directive (AD) completion and hospital out-of-pocket costs. This analysis investigated whether AD completion was associated with lower hospital out-of-pocket costs at end of life.MethodsWe used Health and Retirement Study participants who died between 2000 and 2014 (N = 9228) to examine the association between AD completion status and hospital out-of-pocket spending in the last 2 years of life through the use of a two-part model controlling for socioeconomic status, death-related characteristics and health insurance coverage.ResultsAbout 44% of decedents had completed ADs. Having an AD was significantly associated with $673 lower hospital out-of-pocket costs, with a higher magnitude of savings among younger decedents. Decedents who completed ADs 3 months or less before death had higher out-of-pocket costs ($1854 on average) than those who completed ADs more than 3 months before death ($1176 on average).ConclusionsAD completion was significantly associated with lower hospital out-of-pocket costs, with greater out-of-pocket savings among younger decedents. Early AD completers experienced lower costs than decedents who completed ADs closer to death.© 2022 The Authors. Journal of Hospital Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Hospital Medicine.

15 keywords...

hide…