Expenditures on Physician Services at the End of Life

Eric A. Latimer, Diana K. Verrilli, W. Pete Welch

To learn more about the determinants of end-of-life costs, this study compares decedents' and survivors' use of physician services in the United States and two major Canadian provinces, Quebec and British Columbia. It is based on physician claims data for 1992 from the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration, the Quebec Ministry of Health, the British Columbia Ministry of Health, and a 1 percent random sample of Medicare beneficiaries. Physician service utilization for persons in their last six months of life, aggregated into relative value units, is compared by type of service with that of survivors. The authors also briefly discuss the differences in resources, values, and practice style between the two countries.

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