Coverage For End-of-Life Talks Gaining Ground

Five years after it exploded into a political conflagration over “death panels,” the issue of paying doctors to talk to patients about end-of-life care is making a comeback, and such sessions may be covered for the 50 million Americans on Medicare as early as next year.

Bypassing the political process, private insurers have begun reimbursing doctors for these “advance care planning” conversations as interest in them rises along with the number of aging Americans. People are living longer with illnesses, and many want more input into how they will spend their final days, including whether they want to die at home or in the hospital, and whether they want full-fledged life-sustaining treatment, just pain relief, or something in between.

Some states, including Colorado and Oregon, recently began covering the sessions for Medicaid patients. But far more significant, Medicare may begin covering end-of-life discussions next year if it approves a recent request from the American Medical Association (AMA), the country’s largest association of physicians and medical students.

One of the AMA’s roles is to create billing codes for medical services, codes used by doctors, hospitals, and insurers. It recently created codes for end-of-life conversations and submitted them to Medicare. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs Medicare, would not discuss whether it will agree to cover end-of-life discussions; its decision is expected this fall. But the agency often adopts AMA recommendations, which are developed in meetings attended by its representatives. And the political environment is less toxic than it was when the “death panel” label was coined; although there are still opponents, there are more proponents, including Republican politicians. If Medicare adopts the change, its decision will also set the standard for private insurers, encouraging many more doctors to engage in these conversations.

Source/more: New York Times