Association between discontinuity in clinicians and outcomes of nursing home residents

Little is known about the impact of clinician discontinuity on quality of care for nursing home residents. We examined the association between clinician discontinuity and outcomes of residents with long-term care stays up to 3 years using claims for a national 20% sample of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries from 2014 through 2019. We used an event study analysis that accounted for staggered treatment timing. Estimates were adjusted for resident, clinician, and nursing home characteristics. Three sensitivity analyses were conducted. The first excluded small nursing homes, which were in the lowest quartile based on the number of beds. The second attributed residents to clinician practices rather than individual clinicians. The third removed the 3-year long-term care stay restriction. We found that, compared to residents who did not experience a clinician change, those with a clinician change had a 0.7 percentage point higher likelihood of an ambulatory care sensitive hospitalization in a given quarter (a 36.8% relative increase). Clinician discontinuity was not associated with ambulatory care sensitive emergency department visits. Results from our 3 sensitivity analyses were consistent with those from the primary analysis. Policymakers may consider using continuity in clinicians as a marker of nursing home quality.