Home Health Agency Profit Orientation and Risk for Hospitalization: A Propensity Score Analysis of Population Weighted Data |
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| Authors: | Laura M. Smith MA Kate L. Lapane PhD Mary L. Fennell PhD Edward A. Miller PhD MPA Vincent Mor PhD |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Program in Epidemiology , Laura_Smith@brown.edu;3. Department of Community Health , Warren Alpert Medical School ,;4. Department of Sociology ,;5. Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions, Brown University , Providence, Rhode Island |
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| Abstract: | Little recent research exists identifying home health agency (HHA) organizational characteristics that influence home health quality. This study evaluates the impact of HHA profit orientation on quality, measured as patient risk for hospitalization within 60 days of agency admission. Our sample (n = 1,304), from the National Home and Hospice Care Survey, comprised noninstitutionalized patients, 18 and older, including all payer types, discharged from free-standing HHAs. Our most deconfounded estimate, derived by propensity score adjusted, weighted polytomous logistic regression, yielded a for-profit hospitalization odds ratio of 1.31 but with a large confidence interval including unity. Results do not support our hypothesis of higher hospitalization risk for for-profit HHA patients. |
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| Keywords: | Home health home health care agencies ownership hospitalization quality |
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