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The availability of palliative care consultation is increasing in many hospitals, but does it lower costs? Researchers addressed this question in a prospective observational study that involved 5 U.S. tertiary care hospitals with palliative care consultation teams. Using the statistical technique of propensity-score matching, the researchers compared 713 usual-care patients with 256 patients who received palliative care consultation during hospital admissions. All patients had received primary diagnoses of advanced cancer, and the two groups were similar in 33 demographic and clinical variables.
Estimated direct costs (medications, tests, procedures, supplies, nursing, and “room and board”) were significantly lower in the palliative care gro…