Researchers at Brown University Release New Data on Medicare and Medicaid (Is a Skilled Nursing Facility’s Rehospitalization Rate a Valid Quality…

Researchers at Brown University Release New Data on Medicare and Medicaid (Is a Skilled Nursing Facility's Rehospitalization Rate a Valid Quality Measure?)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- Researchers detail new data in Medicare and Medicaid. According to news reporting originating in Providence, Rhode Island, by VerticalNews journalists, research stated, "To determine whether the observed differences in the risk-adjusted rehospitalization rates across skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) reflect true differences or merely differences in patient severity. Elderly Medicare beneficiaries newly admitted to an SNF following hospitalization."

Financial support for this research came from National Institute on Aging.

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from Brown University, "We used 2009-2012 Medicare data to calculate SNFs' risk-adjusted rehospitalization rate. We then estimated the effect of these rehospitalization rates on the rehospitalization of incident patients in 2013, using an instrumental variable (IV) method and controlling for patient's demographic and clinical characteristics and residential zip code fixed effects. We used the number of empty beds in a patient's proximate SNFs during hospital discharge to create the IV. The risk-adjusted rehospitalization rate varies widely; about one-quarter of the SNFs have a rehospitalization rate lower than 17 percent, and for one-quarter, it is higher than 23 percent. All the IV models result in a robust finding that an increase in a SNF's rehospitalization rate of 1 percentage point over the period 2009-2012 leads to an increase in a patient's likelihood of rehospitalization by 0.8 percentage points in 2013. Treatment in SNFs with historically low rehospitalization causally reduces a patient's likelihood of rehospitalization."

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: "Observed differences in rehospitalization rates reflect true differences and are not an artifact of selection."

For more information on this research see: Is a Skilled Nursing Facility's Rehospitalization Rate a Valid Quality Measure? Health Services Research, 2016;51(6):2158-2175. Health Services Research can be contacted at: Wiley-Blackwell, 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, NJ, USA. (Wiley-Blackwell - www.wiley.com/; Health Services Research - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1475-6773)

Our news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained by contacting M. Rahman, Brown University, Dept. of Hlth Serv Policy & Practice, Providence, RI 02912, United States. Additional authors for this research include D.C. Grabowski, V. Mor and E.C. Norton.

Keywords for this news article include: Providence, Rhode Island, United States, North and Central America, Medicare and Medicaid, Health Policy, Medicare, Brown University.

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