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- Title
Medical foster home is less costly than traditional nursing home care.
- Authors
Levy, Cari; Whitfield, Emily A.; Gutman, Roee
- Abstract
<bold>Objective: </bold>To compare the costs of Community Nursing Homes (CNHs) to Medical Foster Homes (MFHs) at Veteran Health Administration (VHA) Medical Centers that established MFH programs.<bold>Data Sources: </bold>Episode and costs data were derived from VA and Medicare files (inpatient, outpatient, emergency room, skilled nursing facility, dialysis, and hospice).<bold>Study Design: </bold>Propensity scores matched 354 MFH to 1693 CNH Veterans on demographics, clinical characteristics, health care utilization, and costs.<bold>Data Extraction Methods: </bold>Data were retrieved for years 2010-2011 from the VA Corporate Data Warehouse, VA Health Data Repository, and the VA MFH Program through the VA Informatics and Computing Infrastructure (VINCI).<bold>Principal Findings: </bold>After matching on unique characteristics of MFH Veterans, costs were $71.28 less per day alive compared to CNH care. Home-based and mental health care costs increased with savings largely attributable to avoiding CNH residential care. When average out-of-pocket payments by Veterans of $74/day are considered, MFH is at least cost neutral. Mortality was 12 percent higher among matched Veterans in CNHs.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>MFHs may serve as alternatives to traditional CNH care that do not increase total costs with mortality benefits. Future work should examine the differences for functional disability subgroups.
- Subjects
NURSING home care; MENTAL health services; MEDICAL care costs; NURSING care facilities; FOSTER home care of older people; MEDICAL care of veterans
- Publication
Health Services Research, 2019, Vol 54, Issue 6, p1346
- ISSN
0017-9124
- Publication type
journal article
- DOI
10.1111/1475-6773.13195