The amount spent on chronically ill Medicare patients at the end of their lives increased by 15.2 percent from $60,694 in 2007 to $69,947 in 2010, according to a report by the Dartmouth Atlas Project, a research organization that documents how medical resources are distributed and used in the United States.
For the report, researchers examined Medicare claims records of over 1 million Medicare patients who died in 2010. The records examined were from the last two years of the patients' lives.
Key findings of the report include:
End of life Medicare spending
• In 2010, Medicare spending varied from $112,263 per Medicare patient in the last two years of life in Los Angeles to $46,563 per Medicare patient in the last two years of life in Minot, N.D.
• The only region in the U.S. that showed a decrease in Medicare spending in the last two years of life was Bloomington, Ill., where spending decreased from $57,802 in 2007 to $53,674 in 2010.
Deaths occurring in hospitals
• The percentage of patients who died in hospitals decreased overall from 28.1 percent in 2007 to 25 percent in 2010.
• The highest percentage of patients who died in hospitals was found to be in regions in and around New York; the death rate in Manhattan hospitals was found to be 43.7 percent in 2010.
• The lowest percentage of patients who died in hospitals was found to be in Dubuque, Iowa, where the death rate in hospitals was 15.2 percent in 2010.
The report also found that the percent of chronically ill patients who were treated by 10 or more physicians in the last six months of their lives increased, from 36.1 percent in 2007 to 42 percent in 2010.
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