title: Profit status of home health care agencies and the risk of hospitalization.
abstract: We examined the association of profit status and patient hospitalizations in the present-day home health care market, a market that grew substantially in the past decade, with much of that growth attributed to the entry of for-profit agencies. Data from the 2007 National Home and Hospice Care Survey were linked to the risk-adjusted agency-level measure of the percent of home health episodes of care ending in hospitalizations available from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) Home Health Compare Web site. A linear regression model was estimated (n = 510). Control variables included other agency characteristics besides profit status, area hospital bed supply, and state dummy variables to control for state fixed effects. For-profit agencies were more likely than not-for-profit agencies to have a risk of hospitalizations greater than expected after accounting for patient characteristics and model control variables. Attributes of the CMS hospitalization measure are discussed and implications for future research described.
authors.affiliation: National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hyattsville, Maryland 20782, USA. FDecker@cdc.gov
authors.forename: Frederic H
authors.initials: FH
authors.lastname: Decker
mesh_terms: D014487:Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S.; D016208:Databases, Factual; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D018574:Home Care Agencies / Q000191:economics*; D006760:Hospitalization; D012044:Regression Analysis; D018570:Risk Assessment; D014481:United States