Home Health Care News January 8, 2026
While home health is often discussed as a post-acute Medicare benefit, nearly half of patients are admitted through the community rather than after a hospital discharge.
These findings suggest that current payment systems may not constrain service provisions for community-entry patients, according to a new study published in Health Affairs.
“Our findings reveal a fundamental tension between policies that favor postacute care and the reality of Medicare home health use, which serves a substantial population with clinical and demographic profiles that differ from those of postacute care users,” the study’s authors wrote.
Researchers based the study on Medicare administrative data from 2017, 2019 and 2021, identifying home health episodes and admission sources.
The study found that community-entry prevalence varied...
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