Hospice & Palliative Medicine
Conference Coverage
Palliative care may reduce suicide among lung cancer patients
Most patients who died by suicide had not received palliative care.
Daily News Podcast
MDedge Daily News: Is ‘medical aid in dying’ suicide?
And one in five Medicaid kids may have a mental health diagnosis.
From the Journals
Prompt palliative care cut hospital costs in pooled study
Average cost savings per hospital admission were $3,237 overall and were even greater for cancer patients.
Clinical Inquiries
How well do POLST forms assure that patients get the end-of-life care they requested?
EVIDENCE-BASED ANSWER: Quite well, for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Most patients (91%-100%) who select “do not resuscitate” (DNR) on...
Law & Medicine
Consent and DNR orders
Where have the courts set the lines over the issue of consent surrounding decisions to withhold CPR?
Latest News
Advance care planning benefit presents challenges
Some are having success using new Medicare billing codes, while other doctors say barriers are preventing usage.
Feature
End-of-life advice: More than 500,000 chat on Medicare’s dime
The 90-year-old woman in the San Diego–area nursing home was quite clear, said Karl Steinberg, MD. She didn’t want aggressive measures to prolong...
Commentary
Getting it right at the end of life
Now, most dying hospitalized patients are cared for by hospitalists who may be meeting the patient for the first time.
Applied Evidence
Advance care planning: Making it easier for patients (and you)
Helpful resources, many of them online, are available to facilitate the process. And this time-intensive service is now billable under 2 CPT codes...
Feature
Noncancer diagnoses on the rise in palliative care
Patients referred to palliative care are most likely to have cancer, but the proportion has gone down since 2009 as more patients with other...
Conference Coverage
VIDEO: About 1 in 20 ALS patients in Washington state chose assisted suicide
BOSTON – ALS patients were more likely to take deadly meds postprescription than were cancer patients.