Ask the tough questions
CBS’s 60 Minutes did a segment looking at the costs associated with dying in hospitals, saying 20 to 30 percent of expenditures have no impact.
The story focuses on an analysis of Medicare records for patients in the last two years of their lives by the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy. One finding:
“[Dr. Ira Byock] says modern medicine has become so good at keeping the terminally ill alive by treating the complications of underlying disease that the inevitable process of dying has become much harder and is often prolonged unnecessarily.”
Today’s Tip: Don’t tiptoe around tough issues.
Correspondent Steve Kroft wasn’t afraid to ask the tough questions – even when a source reacted negatively to his phrasing of one. When the source said there should be broad-based rules to avoid doing some medical procedures for patients at certain stages, Kroft asked: “Well, this is a version then of pulling Grandma off the machine?”
