More patients with cancer use hospice today than ever before, but there are indications that care intensity outside of hospice is increasing, and length of hospice stay decreasing.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) examined how hospice affects health care utilization and costs and found that in a sample of elderly Medicare patients with advanced cancer, hospice care was associated with significantly lower rates of both health care utilization and total costs during the last year of life. Ultimately, those who chose hospice were five times less likely to die in hospitals and nursing homes.

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