In my 2013 column “Happier endings” I deplored the fact that
doctors of patients in the final stages of incurable diseases so often continue
to administer invasive or unpleasant treatments intended to prolong life when
what patients and their families really want is help to die painlessly.
Good
news, then, from the folks who run Medicare, as explained by New York Times
reporter .
Most older
Americans close to death have to make a difficult choice: continue with
traditional medical treatment or switch to hospice care, which focuses not on a
cure but on easing their remaining days.
Now, Medicare is testing a third
alternative: both.
The new pilot program, designed to affect
the care of about 150,000 Medicare patients
over the next four years, will allow patients with terminal diseases to receive hospice care to manage suffering and
counseling to plan for the end of life — but still see doctors and get medical
treatments, like chemotherapy or
hospitalization, intended to fight their illnesses.
Sanger-Katz explains that the test
program is based on research that shows that patients with access to both
so-called palliative care and traditional medicine often end up with a better
quality of life and may even live long than those treated with traditional
medicine alone.
Why a test to justify Medicare reimbursement for
an approach that everybody already knows works? Because too many physicians
won’t take your word for it.
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2015.
