| The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of length of stay on the operational costs of a Medicare certified hospice program. Demographic data pertaining to length of stay, operational cost, age, sex, and terminal diagnosis was obtained by means of a random sample of thirty Medicare hospice patients. A non-experimental, ex-post-facto design was utilized. Frequency distributions, variability, central tendency, Pearson's Correlation Coefficient, coefficient of determination, and scattergrams were completed for the data. Correlations based on length of stay, sex and age proved to be insignificant. Correlations based on diagnosis yielded a moderate to high negative correlation with operational cost. The hypothesis was rejected based on the insignificant findings for the correlation between the variables length of stay and operational cost. |
