Dying or Lying? For-Profit Hospices and End-of-Life Care
Name
gruber-et-al-2025-dying-or-lying-for-profit-hospices-and-end-of-life-care.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
742.04 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
dbfcd895e0d0a7ade0e671d7d781533d
Author(s)
Gruber, Jonathan
Howard, David H
Leder-Luis, Jetson
Caputi, Theodore L
Date Issued
January 2025
Journal
American Economic Review
Publisher
American Economic Association
Citation
Gruber, Jonathan, David H. Howard, Jetson Leder-Luis, and Theodore L. Caputi. 2025. "Dying or Lying? For-Profit Hospices and End-of-Life Care." American Economic Review 115 (1): 263–94.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The Medicare hospice program is intended to provide palliative care to terminal patients, but patients with long stays in hospice are highly profitable, motivating concerns about overuse among the Alzheimer's and Dementia (ADRD) population in the rapidly growing for-profit sector. We provide the first causal estimates of the effect of for-profit hospice on patient spending using the entry of for-profit hospices over 20 years. We find hospice has saved money for Medicare by offsetting other expensive care among ADRD patients. As a result, policies limiting hospice use including revenue caps and antifraud lawsuits are distortionary and deter potentially cost-saving admissions. (JEL H51, I11, I12, I18, J14, L84)
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
10.1257/aer.20230328
