Patterns of active inpatient care expenditures for the Hungarian elderly in the last year of life

Abstract

This study describes acute hospital-based service utilization during the last year of life by the Hungarian elderly (aged 65+ years) who died in a 12-month period. The aim of this study is to expand our knowledge of the expenditures related to end-of-life care given to elderly patients. The main findings of this study are: (i) The active inpatient expenditures start to increase from the 7th month before death; (ii) In the last twelve months of life, active inpatient care expenditures show a significant decline between the age groups; (iii) Men have higher active hospital spending than women in the last 12 months of life.