Comparison of medical outcomes and health care costs at the end of life between dialysis patients with and without cancer: a national population-based study.

Background: Palliative care has improved the quality of end-of-life (EOL) care and lowered the health care cost of cancer, and these benefits should be extended to patients with other serious illnesses including end-stage kidney disease. We evaluated the quality of EOL care, survival probabilities, and health care costs for dialysis patients in their last month of life.

Methods: We conducted a population-based study and analyzed data from Taiwan's Longitudinal Health Insurance Database, which contains claims information of patient medical records, health care costs, and insurance system exit dates (our proxy for death between 2006 and 2011).