Today's Geriatric Medicine: Barriers to End-of-Life Care Conversations
This web exclusive published by Today's Geriatric Medicine, discussed the importance of conducting end of life care discussions. The article featured quotes from The John A Hartford Foundation's President, Terry Fulmer. This article builds upon the End of Life Poll conducted by the foundation which can be found here.
This web exclusive published by Today's Geriatric Medicine, discussed the importance of conducting end of life care discussions. The article featured quotes from JAHF President Terry Fulmer.
Although physicians recognize the importance of conducting discussions about their patients' end-of-life care options, few make concerted efforts to ascertain patient desires for future care and treatment.
As of January 1, 2016, physicians are eligible to receive reimbursement from Medicare for providing end-of-life care counseling to patients. But although reimbursement is available, a relatively small percentage of physicians are taking advantage of it to date. A new survey from the John A. Hartford Foundation in cooperation with the Cambia Health Foundation and the California HealthCare Foundation finds that many barriers remain in the way of advance care planning conversations, and physicians are often reluctant to initiate the discussions with their patients.
Of the physicians surveyed, all of whom regularly treat older adults, there was near unanimous agreement that end-of-life care counseling is of value. Almost all (99%) said it is important for physicians to have advance care conversations with patients, and 95% expressed support for the new Medicare benefit reimbursing providers for the discussions. Three-fourths of the physicians also indicated that the new benefit would make them more likely to have such conversations with patients.
Read more here.
