Innovative Home Visit Models Associated With Reductions In Costs, Hospitalizations, And Emergency Department Use

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2017-03

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Ruiz, Sarah et al.; Innovative Home Visit Models Associated With Reductions In Costs, Hospitalizations, And Emergency Department Use; Health Affairs, 36, 3, March 2017; https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2016.1305

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Public Domain Mark 1.0
This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law

Subjects

Abstract

While studies of home-based care delivered by teams led by primary care providers have shown cost savings, little is known about outcomes when practice-extender teams—that is, teams led by registered nurses or lay health workers—provide home visits with similar components (for example, care coordination and education). We evaluated findings from five models funded by Health Care Innovation Awards of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Each model used a mix of different components to strengthen connections to primary care among fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions; these connections included practice-extender home visits. Two models achieved significant reductions in Medicare expenditures, and three models reduced utilization in the form of emergency department visits, hospitalizations, or both for beneficiaries relative to comparators. These findings present a strong case for the potential value of home visits by practice-extender teams to reduce Medicare expenditures and service use in a particularly vulnerable and costly segment of the Medicare population.