Profiles of hospital, physician, and home health service use by older persons in rural areas.
Using data from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, we identify differences in hospital days, home health visits and physician office visits across five geographical categories. After controlling for individual characteristics and availability of health care providers, we find significant differences in service use. Results show greater use of home health care and less use of physician office visits and hospital care in rural areas. Because service use exhibits patterns of substitution and complementarity, future research on the use of health services needs to move beyond modeling the use of single services to modeling the range of services used.
Dansky
K H
KH
Department of Health Policy and Administration, Pennsylvania State University, University Park 16802, USA. kxd9@psu.edu
Brannon
D
D
Shea
D G
DG
Vasey
J
J
Dirani
R
R
D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006299:Health Services for the Aged / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008134:Long-Term Care; D008297:Male; D006278:Medicare / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012044:Regression Analysis; D019035:Rural Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States