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Medicare to cover end-of-life counseling
WASHINGTON (AP) — Medicare said Wednesday it plans to pay doctors to counsel patients about end-of-life care, the same idea that sparked accusations of "death panels" and fanned a political furor around President Barack Obama's health care law six years ago.
The policy change, to take effect Jan. 1, was tucked into a massive regulation on payments for doctors. It suggests that what many doctors regard as a common-sense option is no longer seen by the Obama administration as politically toxic. Counseling would be entirely voluntary for patients.
Some doctors already have such conversations with their patients without billing extra. Certain private insurers have begun offering reimbursement. But an opening to roughly 55 million Medicare beneficiaries could make such talks far more common. About three-quarters of the people who die each year in the U.S. are 65 and older, making Medicare the largest insurer at the end of life, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
"As a practicing physician, and a son, and someone who has dealt with this in his own family, I would say these are discussions ... that are critical to high-quality care," said Patrick Conway, Medicare's chief medical officer. "I would want any American who wanted to have this conversation with their clinician to have the opportunity to do so."
Medicare is using a relatively new term for end-of-life counseling: advance care planning. That's meant to reflect expert advice that people should make their wishes known about end-of-life care at different stages of their lives, as early as when they get a driver's license.
The counseling aims to discern the type of treatment patients want in their last days, with options ranging from care that's more focused on comfort than extending life to all-out medical efforts to resuscitate a dying patient.
The policy change, to take effect Jan. 1, was tucked into a massive regulation on payments for doctors. It suggests that what many doctors regard as a common-sense option is no longer seen by the Obama administration as politically toxic. Counseling would be entirely voluntary for patients.
Some doctors already have such conversations with their patients without billing extra. Certain private insurers have begun offering reimbursement. But an opening to roughly 55 million Medicare beneficiaries could make such talks far more common. About three-quarters of the people who die each year in the U.S. are 65 and older, making Medicare the largest insurer at the end of life, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
"As a practicing physician, and a son, and someone who has dealt with this in his own family, I would say these are discussions ... that are critical to high-quality care," said Patrick Conway, Medicare's chief medical officer. "I would want any American who wanted to have this conversation with their clinician to have the opportunity to do so."
Medicare is using a relatively new term for end-of-life counseling: advance care planning. That's meant to reflect expert advice that people should make their wishes known about end-of-life care at different stages of their lives, as early as when they get a driver's license.
The counseling aims to discern the type of treatment patients want in their last days, with options ranging from care that's more focused on comfort than extending life to all-out medical efforts to resuscitate a dying patient.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3c1463f23baa4b79b2f2462ee9fc29ff/medicare-cover-end-life-counseling
As someone with a vested personal interest in end-of-life counseling, I have to applaud this movement. And if you want to look at it from a purely practical point of view, EOL is probably one of the most expensive times in one's life, yet good resources there are hard to find, or unobtainable, for the people who need it the most.
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