costs
lborkowski | March 14, 2011With nearly one-third of US healthcare spending going to hospital care, it's natural that people would be looking for ways to trim spending on hospital services. A new study just published in the journal Health Affairs reports that seriously ill hospital patients receiving consultations from palliative care teams can incur lower costs. For this study's population - Medicaid patients facing serious or life-threatening illnesses admitted to four New York State hospitals - the authors found that patients who received palliative care consultations incurred costs that averaged $6,900 less than…