Incomplete Home Health Care Referral After Hospitalization Among Medicare Beneficiaries

Patients who are referred to home health care after an acute care hospitalization may not receive home health care, resulting in incomplete home health referrals. This study examines the prevalence of incomplete referrals to home health, defined as not receiving home health care within 7 days after an initial hospital discharge, and investigates the relationship between home health referral completion and patient outcomes.

Retrospective cohort study.

Medicare beneficiaries who are discharged from short-term acute care hospitals between October 2015 and December 2016 with a discharge status code on the hospital claim indicating home health care.

Patient characteristics and outcomes were compared between Medicare beneficiaries with complete and incomplete home health referrals after hospital discharge. The outcomes included mortality, readmission rate, and total spending over a 1-year episode following hospitalization. These outcomes were risk-adjusted using patient demographic, socioeconomic, clinical characteristic, hospital characteristic, and state fixed effects.

Approximately 29% of the 724,700 hospitalizations in the analytic dataset had incomplete home health referrals after discharge. The rate of incomplete home health referrals varied among clinical conditions, ranging from 17% among joint/musculoskeletal patients and 38% among digestive/endocrine patients. Risk-adjusted 1-year mortality and readmission rates were 1.4 and 2.4 percentage points lower and total spending was $1053 higher among patients with complete home health referrals as compared with those with incomplete home health referrals after hospital discharge.

The analysis revealed that almost 1 in 3 patients discharged from a hospital with a discharge status of home health does not receive home health care. In addition, complete home health referrals are associated with lower mortality and readmission rates and higher spending. As home health care utilization increases, policymakers should pay attention to the tradeoff between quality and cost when implementing alternative policies and payment models.