Dataset Information

Quality of Post-Acute Care in Skilled Nursing Facilities That Disproportionately Serve Black and Hispanic Patients.

ABSTRACT: Background:Understanding and addressing racial and ethnic disparities in the quality of post-acute care in skilled nursing facilities is an important health policy issue, particularly as the Medicare program initiates value-based payments for these institutions. Methods:Our final cohort included 649,187 Medicare beneficiaries in either the fee-for-service or Medicare Advantage programs, who were 65 and older and were admitted to a skilled nursing facility following an acute hospital stay, from 8,375 skilled nursing facilities. We examined the quality of care in skilled nursing facilities that disproportionately serve minority patients compared to non-Hispanic whites. Three measures, all calculated at the level of the facility, were used to assess quality of care in skilled nursing facilities: 1) 30-day rehospitalization rate; 2) successful discharge from the facility to the community; and 3) Medicare five-star quality ratings. Results:We found that African-American post-acute patients are highly concentrated in a small number of institutions, with 28% of facilities accounting for 80% of all post-acute admissions for African-American patients. Similarly, just 20% of facilities accounted for 80% of all admissions for Hispanics. Skilled nursing facilities with higher fractions of African-American patients had worse performance for three publicly-reported quality measures: rehospitalization, successful discharge to the community, and the star rating indicator. Conclusions:Efforts to address disparities should focus attention on institutions that disproportionately serve minority patients and monitor unintended consequences of value-based payments to skilled nursing facilities.

SUBMITTER: Rivera-Hernandez M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6477650 | biostudies-other | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Quality of Post-Acute Care in Skilled Nursing Facilities That Disproportionately Serve Black and Hispanic Patients.

Rivera-Hernandez Maricruz M Rahman Momotazur M Mukamel Dana B DB Mor Vincent V Trivedi Amal N AN

The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences 20190401 5

<h4>Background</h4>Understanding and addressing racial and ethnic disparities in the quality of post-acute care in skilled nursing facilities is an important health policy issue, particularly as the Medicare program initiates value-based payments for these institutions.<h4>Methods</h4>Our final cohort included 649,187 Medicare beneficiaries in either the fee-for-service or Medicare Advantage programs, who were 65 and older and were admitted to a skilled nursing facility following an acute hospit ...[more]

PMID: 29697778

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Project description:BackgroundHealth care is believed to be suffered from a "cost disease," in which a heavy reliance on labor limits opportunities for efficiencies stemming from technological improvement. Although recent evidence shows that U.S. hospitals have experienced a positive trend of productivity growth, skilled nursing facilities are relatively "low-tech" compared to hospitals, leading some to worry that productivity at skilled nursing facilities will lag behind the rest of the economy.ObjectiveTo assess productivity growth among skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) in the treatment of conditions which frequently involve substantial post-acute care after hospital discharge.MethodsWe constructed an analytic file with the records of Medicare beneficiaries that were discharged from acute-care hospitals to SNFs with stroke, hip fracture, or lower extremity joint replacement (LEJR) between 2006 and 2014. We populated each record for 90 days starting at the time of SNF admission, detailing for each day the treatment site and all associated costs. We used ordinary least square regression to estimate growth in SNF productivity, measured by the ratio of "high-quality SNF stays" to total treatment costs. The primary definition of a high-quality stay was a stay that ended with the return of the patient to the community within 90 days after SNF admission. We controlled for patient demographics and comorbidities in the regression analyses.ResultsOur sample included 1,076,066 patient stays at 14,394 SNFs with LEJR, 315,546 patient stays at 14,154 SNFs with stroke, and 739,608 patient stays at 14,588 SNFs with hip fracture. SNFs improved their productivity in the treatment of patients with LEJR, stroke, and hip fracture by 1.1%, 2.2%, and 2.0% per year, respectively. That pattern was robust to a number of alternative specifications. Regressions on year dummies showed that the productivity first decreased and then increased, with a lowest point in 2011. Over the study period, quality continued to rise, but dominated by higher costs at first. Costs then started to decrease, driving productivity to grow.ConclusionThere has been substantial productivity growth in recent years among SNFs in the U.S. in the treatment of post-acute-care-intensive conditions.

Project description:ObjectiveOlder hospitalized adults with an existing diagnosis of cancer rarely receive cancer treatment after discharge to a skilled nursing facility (SNF). It is unclear to what degree these outcomes may be driven by cumulative effects of previous cancer treatment and their complications vs an absolute functional threshold from which it is not possible to return. We sought to understand post-acute care outcomes of adults newly diagnosed with cancer and explore functional improvement during their SNF stay.DesignRetrospective cohort study, 2011-2013.Setting and participantsSurveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results - Medicare database of patients with new stage II-IV colorectal, pancreatic, bladder, or lung cancer discharged to SNF.MethodsPrimary outcome was time to death after hospital discharge. Covariates include cancer treatment receipt and hospice use. A Minimum Data Set (MDS)-Activities of Daily Living (ADL) score was calculated to measure changes in ADLs during SNF stay. Patient groups of interest were compared descriptively using means and standard deviations for continuous variables and frequencies and percentages for categorical variables. Logistic regression was used to compare patient groups.ResultsA total of 6791 cases were identified. Forty-six percent of patients did not receive treatment or hospice, 25.0% received no treatment but received hospice, 20.8% received treatment but no hospice, and 8.5% received both treatment and hospice. Only 43% of decedents received hospice. Patients who received treatment but not hospice had the best survival. There were limited improvements in MDS-ADL scores in the subset of patients for whom we have complete data. Those with greater functional improvement had improved survival.Conclusions and implicationsThe majority of patients did not receive future cancer treatment or hospice care prior to death. There was limited improvement in MDS-ADL scores raising concern this population might not benefit from the rehabilitative intent of SNFs.

Project description:BackgroundAs the veteran population ages, more veterans are receiving post-acute care in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). However, the outcomes of these transitions across Veterans Affairs (VA) and non-VA settings are unclear.ObjectiveTo measure adverse outcomes in veterans transitioning from hospital to SNF in VA and non-VA hospitals and SNFs.DesignRetrospective observational study using the 2012 to 2014 Residential History File, which concatenates VA, Medicare, and Medicaid data into longitudinal episodes of care for veterans.SettingVA and non-VA hospitals and SNFs in four categories: non-VA SNFs, VA-contracted SNFs, VA Community Living Centers (CLCs), and State Veterans Homes.ParticipantsVeterans, aged 65 years or older, who were acutely hospitalized and discharged to an SNF; one transition was randomly selected per patient.MeasurementsAdverse "transitional care" outcomes were a composite of hospital readmission, emergency department visit, or mortality within 7 days of hospital discharge.ResultsMore than four in five veteran transitions (81.7%) occurred entirely outside the VA system. The overall 7-day outcome rate was 10.7% in the 388 339 veterans included. Adverse outcomes were lowest in VA hospital-CLC transitions (7.5%; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 7.1%-7.8%) and highest in non-VA hospital to VA-contracted nursing home transitions (17.5%; 95% CI = 16.0%-18.9%) in unadjusted analysis. In multivariate analyses adjusted for patient and hospital characteristics, VA hospitals had lower adverse outcome rates than non-VA hospitals (odds ratio [OR] = 0.80; 95% CI = 0.74-0.86). In comparison to VA hospital-VA CLC transitions, non-VA hospital to VA-contracted nursing homes (OR = 2.51; 95% CI = 2.09-3.02) and non-VA hospital to CLC (OR = 2.25; 95% CI = 1.81-2.79) had the highest overall adverse outcome rates.ConclusionMost veteran hospital-SNF transitions occur outside the VA, although adverse transitional care outcomes are lowest inside the VA. These findings raise important questions about the VA's role as a provider and payer of post-acute care in SNFs. J Am Geriatr Soc 67:1820-1826, 2019.

Project description:ImportanceTelemedicine in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) has the potential to improve access and timeliness of care. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to 2022, telemedicine coverage expanded, but little is known about patterns of use in SNFs.ObjectiveTo describe patterns of telemedicine use in SNFs.Design, setting, and participantsThis cohort study used 2018 to 2022 Medicare fee-for-service claims and Minimum Data Set 3.0 records to identify short- and long-term care SNF residents. Clinician visits were grouped into routine SNF visits (ie, regular primary care within SNF) and other outpatient visits (ie, with non-SNF affiliated primary and specialty care clinicians). Using a difference-in-differences approach, assessments included whether off-hours visits (measured as weekend visits), new specialist visits, psychiatrist visits, or visits for residents with limited mobility changed differentially between 2018 to 2019 and 2020 to 2021 for SNFs with high compared with low telemedicine use in 2020.ExposureTelemedicine adoption at SNF after 2020.Main outcomes and measuresNumber and proportion of telemedicine SNF and outpatient visits.ResultsAcross 15 434 SNFs and 4 463 591 residents from the period January 2019 through June 2022 (mean [SD] age, 79.7 [11.6] years; 61% female in 2020), telemedicine visits increased from 0.15% in January 2019 to February 2020 to 15% SNF visits and 25% outpatient visits in May 2020. By 2022, telemedicine dropped to 2% of SNF visits and 8% of outpatient visits. The proportion of SNFs with any telemedicine visits annually dropped from 91% in 2020 to 61% in 2022. The facilities with high telemedicine use were more likely to be rural (adjusted odds ratio vs urban, 2.06; 95% CI, 1.77 to 2.40). Psychiatry visits differentially increased in high vs low telemedicine-use SNFs (20.2% relative increase; 95% CI, 1.2% to 39.2%). In contrast, there was little change in outpatient visits for residents with limited mobility (7.2%; 95% CI, -0.1% to 14.6%) or new specialist visits (-0.7%; 95% CI, -2.5% to 1.2%).Conclusions and relevanceIn this cohort study of SNF residents, telemedicine was rapidly adopted in early 2020 but subsequently stabilized at a low use rate that was nonetheless higher than before 2020. Higher telemedicine use in SNFs was associated with improved access to psychiatry visits in SNFs. A policy to encourage continued telemedicine use may facilitate further access to important services as the technology matures.

Dataset Information

Quality of Post-Acute Care in Skilled Nursing Facilities That Disproportionately Serve Black and Hispanic Patients.

Publications

Quality of Post-Acute Care in Skilled Nursing Facilities That Disproportionately Serve Black and Hispanic Patients.

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