More people are recognizing the value of advance care planning, but less are apt to follow through with those discussions.
More than two-thirds (68%) of Americans indicated that discussing end-of-life preparations with their loved ones is important in a recent nationwide survey from life insurance provider and global technology company Ethos.
However, among these individuals, less than half (47%) had goals of care conversations with their families or made end-of-life preparations, according to the survey findings.
“Given how reluctant people are to talk about death, perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised us that many people also haven’t done much to prepare for it,” said Nichole Myers, chief underwriter at Ethos, in a company announcement. “Still, the important thing to remember is, it’s almost never too late.”
A range of factors contributes to the lag between what people value and what they do when it comes to advance care planning, in addition to general fear or discomfort with the subject.
Poor care coordination can adversely impact utilization, as can the variation among states and health care organizations in how they manage these processes. Another challenge is that many clinicians across the board lack exposure or training on how to conduct goals-of-care conversations.
Despite these obstacles, the pandemic spurred an uptick in advance care planning utilization, as the outbreak moved more people to begin considering their own mortality or or that of their loved ones’, according to research published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network.
The number of advance care planning users rose to a monthly average of 154 between Jan. 2019 and April 2020. Prior to the pandemic, the median rate was 31 per month.
“Even before the pandemic, we knew that about 5% of kids will lose a parent before the age of 15,” said Myers.
Making advance care planning resources more available and accessible is “critical” to providing families with a “social safety net” when a loved one passes, she continued.
The Ethos survey also found that demographics and socioeconomic status came into play around advance care planning measures.
Older generations, higher income individuals and married or partnered people were more likely to have done end-of-life planning than other groups, according to researchers.
Roughly 20% of people without household incomes less than $50,000 annually had created a will, compared to 34% with household incomes tipping past $100,000. Additionally, a third of married or partnered Americans had a will in place, compared to 17% of single individuals.
Companies featured in this article:
