Aging-in-place policies substitute home care for nursing home admissions (NHA), but is home care really cheaper? Eddy van Doorslaer, Professor of Health Economics at Erasmus School of Economics, has studied this, together with Albert Wong, Pieter Bakx and Bram Wouterse. They suggest that these policies may not be a win-win after all.
The results of their research suggest that the healthcare costs of elderly with an indication for inpatient care are not higher than those of elderly with an indication for home care. Furthermore, the impact of the different types of care on mortality is zero. This result is striking because it has been generally assumed that living at home would be cheaper. As a result, many reforms in healthcare for elderly were aimed at allowing the elderly to live at home for as long as possible. Now, however, it appears that this is not the cheapest solution. Even though elderly with an indication for inpatient care spend more money on this inpatient care, their spending on home care as well as curative care are much lower than those of elderly with an indication for home care. As such, the total healthcare costs of elderly with an indication for inpatient care are not higher than those of elderly with an indication for home care.