Research Alert: October 9, 2014

Differences in Case-Mix between Rural and Urban Recipients of Home Health Care

• Key Facts
• Full Report

Medicare pays for home health care for beneficiaries who require certain services but for whom travel to receive care is physically and/or mentally difficult or not medically recommended. Covered services include skilled nursing care; physical, occupational and speech-language pathology services; medical social services; and home health aide services. A beneficiary who has experienced a stroke and needs rehabilitative and support care during the recovery period is one example.

Home health care is both an important part of the care continuum for Medicare beneficiaries and a major program cost.  However, little information about the actual health status and needs of the population receiving home health services has been published. Thus, the purpose of the analysis reported here is to provide a thorough, clinically based description of the health status and service needs of rural and urban Medicare home health patients based on a professional assessment of their condition at the start of care. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requires that each home health care recipient be assessed at the start of care using a set of questions developed to reflect the specific needs of home health patients.  Our report is based on a review of 1,468,465 unique beneficiary assessments from the 2010 Outcome Assessment Information Set (OASIS).

Additional Resources of Interest:

• Home Health Care Agency Availability in Rural Counties
• More information about the Rural and Minority Health Research Center
• More information from the Rural Health Information Hub's topic guide: Home Health Services