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

• Author: Koczor-Keul M.
• Pages: 223-234

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

Series V: Economic Sciences • Vol. 10 (59) No. 2 - 2017

Patterns of active inpatient care expenditures for the

Hungarian elderly in the last year of life

Melinda KOCZOR-KEUL1

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 on the expenditures related to the 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 then women in the last 12 months of life.

Key-words: aging, health expenditure, active inpatient care, elderly, last year of life

1. Introduction

The usage of healthcare services is sometimes necessary during our lifetime, but

towards the end of life is almost inevitable. The health services received at the end

of life tend to be expensive and complex and affect not only the suffering

individuals, but also their family members and the society as a whole.

Because of their size, knowing the behaviour of these costs is important to

anticipate the future development of health spending. Health care costs are higher

for the elderly than for any other age group, since the elderly are usually the closest

to death, so higher costs associated with death will mainly appear in their case.

Therefore, it is essential how the demographic aging phenomenon is taken into

account in the forecasts. We may think that population aging can have important

consequences for the sustainability of future healthcare systems.

In recent years, there is an increasing literature on the health expenditures of

the pre-death period. Though the results differ, the studies agree with the fact that

during a person's life the costs of health treatments are accumulated in the years or

moths before death, irrespective of the individual's age at the moment of death. So,

as the end of life approaches, there is a significant increase in health spending.

The health expenditures of the last years of life have been in the focus of

interest for researchers and decision-makers since the 1980s. For several decades,

1 University of Pannonia, Veszprém, keul_m@yahoo.com