Costs and implications of discarded medication in hospice

Symptom control for hospice patients frequently involves the use of pharmacologic agents for control of pain, dyspnea, and anxiety. Other troubling symptoms that will often require pharmacologic agents include nausea, vomiting, constipation, and delirium. While the Medicare requirement for hospice is a prognosis of six months or less, accurately predicting prognosis is very difficult. Because of this, medications for symptom control will often have to be prescribed and refilled without knowing exactly how much the hospice patient may require. The objective of the current study was to determine the amount of medication discarded at death. Additionally we wanted to estimate the cost related to discarded medication. We reviewed the records of 296 patients over a three-year period in a community hospice to characterize the medications that were discarded at death. Seventeen patients were not eligible for evaluation because of lack of complete information, leaving 279 study subjects. Cost calculations were used using a website cost calculator (HealthTrans.com). Fifty-six percent of the decedents were female and the majority were Hispanic (62%). The five most common diagnoses were cancer (36%); dementia (22%); and COPD, CVA, and congestive heart failure (CHF) (8%). The median length of stay in hospice was 16 days. The most frequent medication unused at the time of death was morphine solution followed by lorazepam. The cost of discarded morphine including tablets as well as solution totaled over $6,000 for the study period. The next highest medication cost was lorazepam for both solution and tablets, which came to over $1,600. The total estimated cost for all medications for the study period amounted to $14,980. The results of this study indicate that hospice patients have variable amounts of discarded medication at the time of death and that the cost involved of these unused medications can be significant. Hospice organizations should investigate creative ways to reduce the amount of discarded medications.