reports

An actuarial perspective on healthcare expenditure in the last year of life

Washington, DC: International Congress of Actuaries.

University of Cape Town, South Africa

The aim of this paper is to highlight the key methodological considerations in an investigation into the costs incurred by health insurers arising from the provision of benefits during the 12 months preceding a beneficiary’s death. A South African dataset is used to illustrate the suggested methodology.
There are two main types of investigation that are discussed. First, the comparison of costs in the last year of life to costs in earlier years prior to death. Second, the comparison of decedent and survivor costs. Within each investigation further detailed analyses were performed with particular emphasis on the distribution of last-year-of-life costs with age and category of expenditure.