End of life expenses

What is end-of-life care?

Financial experts often give advice on how to plan for major life milestones, like your children’s college education and retirement. But what about the cost of dying? Creating a financial plan for the final stages of life, or end-of-life care, may not be a pleasant thought, but it can save you a lot of heartache and grief when you and your family are already going through a difficult time.

From end-of-life care expenses to funeral costs, it’s important to be informed about how much it costs to die and how life insurance can help provide your family with the financial support they need when that time comes. While making decisions about end-of-life care can be challenging, it’s also a form of care—it can ease the burden on your loved ones. And on a personal level, it can bring peace of mind to know that if you become ill, you can focus on spending quality time with the ones you love.

End-of-life care, also known as palliative care or hospice care, is a specialized part of health care that focuses on providing support and comfort to people who are nearing the end of their lives. This type of care aims to improve the quality of life of both the patient and their family members by meeting their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.

End-of-life care is typically provided by a multidisciplinary team of health professionals and may include a range of services tailored to each person's specific needs.

Key components of end-of-life care include:

• Pain and symptom management to help patients live more comfortably
• Emotional and psychosocial support for patients and their caregivers to cope with the final stages of life
• Spiritual and cultural support to provide an extra layer of comfort
• Relief care for caregivers, helping to prevent burnout
• Hospice care when life expectancy is only a few months or less
• Grief support immediately after the person's death

What is the cost of end-of-life care?

End-of-life care costs can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the health situation and how long a person needs care before passing away. In fact, in 2019, 101,300,000 of all healthcare costs in the U.S. went toward end-of-life expenses — a staggering $365 billion.

When someone is diagnosed with a serious illness, they typically enter palliative care. This is the first step toward hospice care, which usually begins when the person has a life expectancy of six months or less. Palliative care costs can include managing symptoms and pain caused by chronic illnesses or conditions (such as cancer or heart disease).

There can be a wide range of end-of-life care costs, depending on the type of treatment provided—doctor visits or hospital stays versus home care. Your health insurance coverage may help offset some of the costs, but it rarely covers all of them.

Depending on your circumstances, you should expect to spend a considerable amount of money out of pocket. For example, Medicare does not always cover hospice care at home, especially if the person is not officially on hospice care with a limited life expectancy. Additionally, even if your insurance or Medicare covers some of your hospice care, you will still have to pay deductibles and co-payments — amounts that tend to increase as you age.