Pediatric Concurrent Hospice Care: Cost Implications of a Hybrid Payment Model

Implementation of concurrent hospice care led to a new hybrid payment model that combines hospice payments with payments for non-hospice medical care. Little is known about the cost implications of this new hybrid payment model.

The purpose was to identify costs and compare concurrent care and standard hospice care costs by estimating the average incremental Medicaid cost of care over time.

Using national Medicaid data of 18 147 hospice children and a multilevel generalized linear model, we calculated the incremental costs of receiving concurrent vs standard hospice care. We used the total cost of care over the last year of life. Increments for the analysis were hospice length of stay, stratified to 1 day, 2-14 days, and 15 + days.

Overall, compared to standard hospice care, enrollment in concurrent hospice care was significantly associated with an increase in outpatient care and prescription drug costs. For a stay of 1 day, concurrent hospice care decreased inpatient costs and increased costs of prescription drugs. For stays between 2 and 14 days, concurrent hospice decreased total costs and inpatient costs, but increased prescription drug costs. With a hospice stay of 15 + days, concurrent hospice had significantly higher costs across all measures, including total costs, inpatient costs, outpatient costs, and prescription drug costs.

This study provides critical insight into incremental costs of receiving concurrent vs standard hospice care. More research is needed to understand how concurrent hospice lengthy hospice stays are associated with increases of costs.