In 1982, the US Congress passed the the Tax Equity and Fiscal
Responsibility Act (TEFRA'82) which included and funded the Medicare
Hospice Benefit. This new benefit funded the option of in-home hospice
care, at a fixed per diem (daily) reimbursement to certified Medicare
providers, versus the usual "fee-for-service/item" reimbursement
method. Hence from 1982 to date, millions of terminally ill Medicare
Beneficiaries have opted to die at home using their Hospice Medicare
Benefit (encompassing, fixed daily rate), versus opting to die in
health institutions (hospitals, etc) which use the uncapped,
fee-for-service/item method of billing the US Medicare System.
QUESTON: What has been the ACTUAL AMOUNT OF SAVINGS ($)to the US
Medicare Budget (1982 - present) since the implementation of the
Medicare Hospice Benifit? (fixed per diem versus fee-for-service/item
care of the terminally ill) Data sources?

27 percent from 1992 to 1998, says Joseph Newhouse, the John D.
MacArthur professor of health policy and management at the Harvard
School of Public Health.