Hospice Benefits and Utilization in the Large Employer Market

This study is part of a larger project exploring the use of hospice benefits and services provided by the Medicare program and to those who are privately insured. The MEDSTAT Group's contribution to the larger study is an examination of hospice benefits in commercial plans and the use of hospice benefits by persons commercially insured. In particular, this report focuses on hospice benefits in plans offered by large employers in the U.S. and the utilization of hospice benefits by the employees of these large companies, their dependents, and in some cases early retirees. The authors draw upon MEDSTAT's proprietary MarketScan® data base for all of the analyses in this study. MarketScan® includes approximately 70 employers and 200 insurance carriers/claims administrators. [64 PDF pages]