Longitudinal Changes in Risk Stratification for a Managed Population

The LIGHT² project managed the care of approximately 10,000 Medicare (primarily elderly) and Medicaid (low income) patients between 2013 and 2015. Risk tiers based on chronic disease diagnoses and recent healthcare utilization were strongly predictive of future healthcare utilization, and the authors expected that the members of an aging and well-insured population would gradually rise in risk of healthcare utilization over the course of three years. Various analytic techniques were used to characterize the members of higher risk tiers. However, retrospective cohort analysis and simple data visualization discovered the tendency of patients in lower initial risk tiers to remain healthy, and the tendency of patients in higher initial risk tiers to improve. In a time frame of three years, this return to stability was a more important influence on healthcare utilization than risk or aging.