Last Year of Life

Factors that make up last-year-of-life expenditure effects include practice patterns, technological advances, and patient preferences. The purpose of this study is to investigate the characteristics of Medicare expenditures for care provided in the last year of life from 1994 through 1999. During the study period, impacts due to legislation and changes in managed care enrollment also were considered.

The analysis was performed using claims data from the 5% sample standard analytical files for the Home Health, Inpatient, Outpatient, Durable Medical Equipment, Hospice, Skilled Nursing Facility, and Physician record types. The date of death and demographic information for beneficiaries in the sample were drawn from Denominator files for the period.