Medication Patterns for Medicare Beneficiaries with SNF/LTC Facility Stays

Under the new Medicare drug benefit, beneficiaries residing in nursing homes and other long-term care (LTC) facilities have the same wide selection of Part D prescription drug plans available to community-dwelling beneficiaries. However, Part D does not alter Part A coverage for drugs during qualified skilled nursing facility (SNF) stays. This raises questions of whether drug utilization patterns differ for beneficiaries who transition between SNF episodes and other LTC facility stays and whether the presence of prescription coverage makes any difference. This study used regression analysis of the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) data from 2001 to address these questions. We found that beneficiaries received between 7-30 percent fewer medication administrations during SNF months compared to months spent only in other LTC facility stays (p< 0.01). We found no evidence that prescription coverage influenced medication utilization patterns during non-Medicare qualified LTC facility stays.