To Live and Die: What Is Driving up the Cost of Hospitalization in Brazil?

Claudia Berenstein, Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional (CEDEPLAR)
Roberto Rodrigues, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
Carla J. Machado, Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional (CEDEPLAR)

In Brazil, a rapid decrease in fertility rates accompanied by an increase in longevity of the population has resulted in changes in the population’s morbidity-mortality profile and in health expenditures, which is known to rise with age or proximity to death. The aim of this article are (i) to measure the impact of age and proximity to death in health expenditures in the last year of life; (ii) to examine whether health expenditures are due to only one hospitalization or re-hospitalizations for the same disease; (iii) to determine which diseases drive up expenditures. The data comes from public hospitalizations of Minas Gerais (Brazil) in 2004/2005. It was observed that in the presence of proximity to death, the age effect is relatively small and even negative for those who are dying. These findings confirm that expenditures due to re-hospitalizations and diagnoses of congenital malformations and circulatory diseases cause the highest expenditures.