Post-acute care facilities in MA disproportionately reject referred patients with opioid use disorder

The study was conducted by Boston Medical Center’s Grayken Center for Addiction and was published in the March issue of Health Affairs. It looked at more than 2,400 hospitalizations at Boston Medical Center, a safety-net hospital, and 16,500 subsequent referrals to 244 private post-acute care facilities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire during 2018.

It found patients with OUD were rejected at more than double the rate as patients without the condition. Only 6 in 10 patients with OUD were discharged to a nursing facility. These rejections likely prolonged hospital stays as they limited access to medically necessary care....