Community-Entry Home Health Made Up Nearly Half Of Home Health Episodes And Spending In Traditional Medicare, 2017–21

Abstract

Medicare home health care is often characterized as a postacute care benefit, yet community-entry users—those admitted without a preceding hospitalization—account for nearly half of all spending and episodes in traditional Medicare. Using Medicare administrative data from 2017, 2019, and 2021, we analyzed differences between community-entry and postacute home health users. Community-entry beneficiaries were older; were more likely to be dually eligible; and had substantially higher rates of cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, and depression...

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