Palliative care is not yet a well-defined product within the Dutch healthcare insurance system

In the Netherlands, the quality and availability of palliative care has improved markedly within the last decade. However, many open questions remain concerning the position of palliative care as an insurable product on the Dutch healthcare market. Therefore, we analysed the policies of all private Dutch healthcare insurance companies as well as the public insurance policy for extraordinary medical costs. We studied how and which parts of palliative care were reimbursed in 2007. We observed a huge variability in costs and reimbursement regulations reflecting a rapid turnover of products for palliative care due to various new developments on this specific field of medical care. We conclude that a better definition of the product ‘palliative care’ is necessary for patients, health care providers and insurance companies.