With hospital palliative care doubling in the past decade, questions surround who will pay for this growing medical specialty. Who will cover the costs of services, and where will the workforce come from?
Most palliative programs exist at nonprofit hospitals and are largely paid for by philanthropic funds, reports the Los Angeles Times. Although they pay for palliative physicians, Medicare and Medicaid, for the most part, do not pay for the nurse practitioners, social workers, and pastoral counselors who also deliver care. In addition, physicians with specialty training are scarce, adding to another concern about the workforce needed to meet the demands of aging populations with chronic or terminal conditions. For example, trained palliative and hospice care physicians fall somewhere between 6,000 and 18,000 short of U.S. needs, according to a study published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, reports the LA Times.
"There are a number of hospitals in the United States that want to have a palliative care team and are having difficulty recruiting," said Dr. Sean Morrison of the National Palliative Care Research Center and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in the article. "There just are not enough trained professionals to provide this care.
Sixty-three percent of U.S. hospitals have palliative teams, with 1,568 teams nationwide, up from only 658 in 2000, according to recent data by the Center to Advance Palliative Care. According to the data, 92 percent of people said they would consider palliative care for a loved one, and 92 percent felt it is important to make such services available.
Palliative care is about adding life to patients' years rather than years to their lives, notes Dr. Marwa Kilani, director of palliative care at Providence Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills, in another LA Times article.
For more information:
- read the Los Angeles Times article about palliative costs
- read the Los Angeles Times article about palliative care
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