Drivers of Community-Entry Home Health Care Utilization Among Older Adults

OBJECTIVES

A growing proportion of Medicare home health (HH) patients are "community-entry," meaning referred to HH without a preceding hospitalization. We sought to identify factors that predict community-entry HH use among older adults to provide foundational information regarding care needs and circumstances that may prompt community-entry HH referral.

DESIGN

Nationally representative cohort study.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

Health and Retirement Study (HRS) respondents who were aged ≥65 years, community-living, and enrolled in Medicare between 2012 and 2018 (n = 11,425 unique individuals providing 27,026 two-year observation periods).

METHODS

HRS data were linked with standardized HH patient assessments. Community-entry HH utilization was defined as incurring one or more HH episode with no preceding hospitalization or institutional post-acute care stay (determined via assessment item indicating institutional care within 14 days of HH admission) within 2 years of HRS interview. Weighted, multivariable logistic regression was used to model community-entry HH use as a function of individual, social support, and community characteristics.

RESULTS

The overall rate of community-entry HH utilization across observation periods was 13.4%. Older adults had higher odds of community-entry HH use if they were Medicaid enrolled [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 1.49, P = .001], had fair or poor overall health (aOR = 1.48, P < .001), 3+ activities of daily living limitations (aOR = 1.47, P = .007), and had fallen in the past 2 years (aOR = 1.43, P < .001). Compared with those receiving no caregiver help, individuals were more likely to use community-entry HH if they received family or unpaid help only (aOR = 1.81, P < .001), both family and paid help (aOR = 2.79, P < .001), or paid help only (aOR: 3.46, P < .001).

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Findings indicate that community-entry HH serves a population with long-term care needs and coexisting clinical complexity, making this an important setting to provide skilled care and prevent avoidable health care utilization. Results highlight the need for ongoing monitoring of community-entry HH accessibility as this service is a key component of home-based care for a high-need subpopulation.

Prevalence and predictors of incident ADRD diagnosis following a Medicare home health episode

INTRODUCTION

Home health (HH) may be an important source of care for those with early-stage/undiagnosed Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD), but little is known regarding prevalence or predictors of incident ADRD diagnosis following HH.

METHODS

Using 2010-2012 linked Master Beneficiary Summary File (MBSF) and HH assessment data for 40,596 Medicare HH patients, we model incident ADRD diagnosis within 1 year of HH via multivariable logistic regression.

RESULTS

Among HH patients without diagnosed ADRD, 10% received an incident diagnosis within 1 year. In adjusted models, patients were three times more likely to receive an incident ADRD diagnosis if they had HH clinician-reported impaired overall cognition (compared to patients without reported impairment) and twice as likely if they were community-referred (compared to hospital-referred patients).

DISCUSSION

There is a pressing need to develop tailored HH clinical pathways and protect access to community-referred HH to support community-living older adults with early-stage/undiagnosed ADRD.

Medications Associated With Geriatric Syndromes (MAGS) and Hospitalization Risk in Home Health Care Patients

OBJECTIVES

Polypharmacy is common in home health care (HHC). This study examined the prevalence of medications associated with geriatric syndromes (MAGS), its predictors, and association with subsequent hospitalization in HHC.

DESIGN

Analysis of HHC electronic medical records, the Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS), and Medicare HHC claims.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

A total of 6882 adults ≥65 years old receiving HHC in 2019 from a large, not-for-profit home health agency serving multiple counties in New York State.

MEASURES

MAGS use was identified from active medications reconciled during HHC visits (HHC electronic medical records). MAGS use was operationalized as count and in quartiles. Hospitalization during the HHC episode was operationalized as a time-to-event variable (ie, number of days from HHC admission to hospitalization). We used regression analyses to identify predictors of MAGS use, and survival analyses to examine the association between MAGS and hospitalization.

RESULTS

Nearly all (98%) of the HHC patients used at least 1 MAGS and 41% of all active medications used by the sample were MAGS. More MAGS use was found in HHC patients who were community-referred, taking more medications, and having more diagnoses, depressive symptoms, and functional limitations. Adjusted for covariates, higher MAGS quartiles were not independently associated with the risk of hospitalization, but higher MAGS quartiles combined with multimorbidity (ie, having ≥10 diagnoses) were associated with a 2.3-fold increase in hospitalization risk (hazard ratio 2.24; 95% confidence interval: 1.61-3.13; P < .001), relative to the lowest quartile of MAGS use and having <10 diagnoses.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

More than 40% of medications taken by HHC patients are MAGS. Multimorbidity and MAGS use collectively increased the risk of hospitalization by up to 2.3 times. HHC clinicians should carefully review patients' medications and use information about MAGS to facilitate discussion about deprescribing with patients and their prescribers.

Social Vulnerability and Medical Complexity Among Medicare Beneficiaries Receiving Home Health Without Prior Hospitalization

Background and Objectives

Recent Medicare home health payment changes reduce reimbursement for care provided to patients without a preceding hospitalization. Beneficiaries may enter home health without a preceding hospitalization via referral from a community provider or through incurring multiple episodes of home health care. We assess potential implications of this change by examining the characteristics of patients accessing Medicare home health through each of these pathways.

Research Design and Methods

Nationally representative retrospective cohort study of 1,224 (weighted n = 5,913,080) older adults who participated in the National Health and Aging Trends Study between 2011 and 2015 and received Medicare-funded home health within 1 year of interview. Patient characteristics before home health were drawn from the National Health and Aging Trends Study, while characteristics during home health, referral source, and number of episodes incurred were drawn from linked Outcomes and Assessment Information Set and Medicare claims. We tested for differences in characteristics by referral source and number of episodes using weighted chi-square tests and t tests.

Results

Patients referred to home health from the community were more than twice as likely to be Medicaid-enrolled (24.0% vs 12.5%, p < .001), have dementia (29.5% vs 12.4%, p < .001), and have received 80 or more hours/month of family caregiver assistance (20.7% vs 10.1%, p < .001) prior to home health entry compared to those referred from a hospital or skilled nursing facility. Patients who incurred multiple episodes in a spell of home health care were more likely to have high clinical severity during home health (48.3% vs 28.1%, p < .001), compared to those with a single episode.

Discussion and Implications

Greater social vulnerability and care needs before home health were associated with community referral, while greater clinical severity during home health was associated with incurring multiple episodes of care. Findings suggest that recent payment changes may threaten home health access among beneficiaries with greater social vulnerability and/or medical complexity.

Older Adult Factors Associated With Identified Need for Family Caregiver Assistance During Home Health Care

Family caregivers make important contributions to home health care for older adults, but knowledge of the specific roles they assume is lacking. We analyzed data from 1,758 community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries aged 65+ receiving Medicare-funded home health care between 2011 and 2016, using linked National Health and Aging Trends Study and Outcomes and Assessment Information Set data. Most (86.7%) beneficiaries receiving home health care had an identified need for family caregiver assistance, and nearly 6 in 10 (57.9%) had identified need for caregiver assistance with five or more tasks. After examining significant associations between older adult characteristics and identified needs for caregiver assistance with specific tasks, we identified three profiles of older adults who demonstrate similar patterns of identified need for family caregiver assistance during home health. These profiles include: (1) older adults with greater functional impairment who more often had identified need for assistance with Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, advocacy, or Activities of Daily Living; (2) older adults with cognitive impairment who more often had identified need for assistance with medication administration or supervision; and (3) older adults with greater clinical severity who more often had identified need for assistance with medical procedures and equipment. Findings support calls to develop training interventions and strengthen the partnership between home health providers and family caregivers. These three profiles present a potential framework for the development of family caregiver training programs.