Are Surgeons Financially Motivated to Perform End-of-Life Surgeries?

A study published in the October 5 issue of The Lancet analyzes data from almost two million Medicare patients (aged sixty-five and older) who all died in 2008. The data reveales that almost one in five of the patients underwent surgery during their last month of life, with one of ten patients undergoing a procedure the week preceding his or her death. According to the study, many of these patients were already going to die.

This study has caused many to claim that hospitals and surgeons are performing surgeries at the end of a patient’s life for financial gain. Dr. Amy Kelley, an assistant professor of geriatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, claims these surgeons and hospitals are motivated by money because Medicare is guaranteed to pay for these surgeries and procedures whether patients want them or not.

Dr. Frank Opelka, an associate medical director at the American College of Surgeons said, “I do not know a single surgeon who says, ‘We’re going to do this because there’s a financial incentive.’ These patients are absolutely facing the most difficult time in their life, and the profession just doesn’t act that way.”

See Ryan Jaslow, Does Profit Motive Explain High Rates of End-of-Life Surgery?, CBS, Oct. 7, 2011.