Association between home health agency ownership status and discharge to community among Medicare beneficiaries

Rashmita Basu, Bei Wu, Huabin Luo, Leeanna Allgood

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

To investigate the association of ownership status, discharge rate and length of stay (LOS) of home health care (HH) services under the prospective payment system (PPS). We used 2016–2018 Outcome Assessment and Information Set (OASIS) data sets for Medicare beneficiaries. Two outcome variables were investigated: rate of discharge from an HH agency and LOS. Our main independent variable was ownership status: for-profit (FP) versus not-for-profit (NFP). FP agencies were 4.2% (p <.01) less likely to discharge patients to the community but more likely (7.3%; p <.001) to have longer LOS (>99 days) compared to NFPs. Findings that FP agencies were less likely to discharge patients to the community and more likely to have a longer length of stay than NFP agencies have implications for quality of care initiatives by the Medicare Post-Acute Transformation Act 2014.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)340-354
Number of pages15
JournalHome Health Care Services Quarterly
Volume40
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021

Keywords

  • Home health care
  • discharge outcomes
  • for-profits vs not-for-profit agencies
  • length of stay

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Health Policy
  • Community and Home Care
  • Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

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