Our country’s system for taking care of people at the end of their lives is broken and must be overhauled completely, a national panel has concluded.
The report, by the prestigious Institute of Medicine, concluded that the health care system is poorly designed to meet the needs of patients near the end of life, according to a story in the New York Times.
It says the system is encouraged to do more while patients actually want less.
The panel said Medicare should reimburse doctors for engaging patients in conversations about end-of-life planning.
They also urged Medicare to pay more for home health care rather than hospital care.
Some of the changes would require congressional authorization.
The report said money would be saved if patients had their needs met, their pain alleviated and their care given at home.
It also said doctors should not be reimbursed on a “fee for service” basis since that only encourages them to perform interventions that are not needed or not of any value.
Some critics said the report is designed more to save the government money than anything else and questioned whether changes in the system would pressure the sick and dying to reject lifesaving measures that they actually want.
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