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Terminal illness
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=== Healthcare spending === Healthcare during the last year of life is costly, especially for patients who used hospital services often during end-of-life.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Riley|first1=Gerald F|last2=Lubitz|first2=James D|year=2010|title=Long-Term Trends in Medicare Payments in the Last Year of Life|journal=Health Services Research|volume=45|issue=2|pages=565β576|doi=10.1111/j.1475-6773.2010.01082.x|issn=0017-9124|pmc=2838161|pmid=20148984}}</ref> In fact, according to Langton et al., there were "exponential increases in service use and costs as death approached."<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Langton|first1=Julia M|last2=Blanch|first2=Bianca|last3=Drew|first3=Anna K|last4=Haas|first4=Marion|last5=Ingham|first5=Jane M|last6=Pearson|first6=Sallie-Anne|title=Retrospective studies of end-of-life resource utilization and costs in cancer care using health administrative data: A systematic review|journal=Palliative Medicine|volume=28|issue=10|pages=1167β1196|doi=10.1177/0269216314533813|pmid=24866758|year=2014|s2cid=42436569}}</ref> Many dying terminal patients are also brought to the [[emergency department]] (ED) at the end of life when treatment is no longer beneficial, raising costs and using limited space in the ED.<ref name="Forero-2012">{{Cite journal|last1=Forero|first1=Roberto|last2=McDonnell|first2=Geoff|last3=Gallego|first3=Blanca|last4=McCarthy|first4=Sally|last5=Mohsin|first5=Mohammed|last6=Shanley|first6=Chris|last7=Formby|first7=Frank|last8=Hillman|first8=Ken|year=2012|title=A Literature Review on Care at the End-of-Life in the Emergency Department|journal=Emergency Medicine International|volume=2012|pages=486516|doi=10.1155/2012/486516|issn=2090-2840|pmc=3303563|pmid=22500239|doi-access=free}}</ref> While there are often claims about "disproportionate" spending of money and resources on end-of-life patients, data have not proven this type of correlation.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Scitovsky|first=Anne A|year=2005|title="The High Cost of Dying": What Do the Data Show?|journal=The Milbank Quarterly|volume=83|issue=4|pages=825β841|doi=10.1111/j.1468-0009.2005.00402.x|issn=0887-378X|pmc=2690284|pmid=16279969}}</ref> The cost of healthcare for end-of-life patients is 13% of annual healthcare spending in the U.S. However, of the group of patients with the highest healthcare spending, end-of-life patients only made up 11% of these people, meaning the most expensive spending is not made up mostly of terminal patients.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Aldridge|first1=Melissa D.|last2=Kelley|first2=Amy S.|year=2015|title=The Myth Regarding the High Cost of End-of-Life Care|journal=American Journal of Public Health|volume=105|issue=12|pages=2411β2415|doi=10.2105/AJPH.2015.302889|issn=0090-0036|pmc=4638261|pmid=26469646}}</ref> Many recent studies have shown that [[palliative care]] and [[hospice]] options as an alternative are much less expensive for end-of-life patients.<ref name="Chiang-2015a"/><ref name="Chiang-2015b"/><ref name="Smith-2014"/>
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