Risk of hospitalization associated with different constellations of home & community based services

BACKGROUND: Identify the association between specific combinations of home and community-based services (HCBS) and risk of acute hospitalization. METHODS: Data for this study came from Pennsylvania Medicaid claims and Medicare records. This was a retrospective, observational cohort study that examined hospitalization, HCBS service use and patient characteristics between July, 2014 and December, 2016. This analysis compared risk of inpatient hospitalization risk for community dwelling disabled older adults using a range of Medicaid financed HCBS. Twelve constellations of HCBS were identified representing different combinations of common services (personal assistive services [PAS], delivered meals, and adult day care). Since HCBS users are not randomly assigned to different combinations of services, we used logistic regression to estimate the predicted probability of experiencing hospitalization conditional on the constellation of services, and adjusting for demographics, health and level of disability. RESULTS: The most common constellation was people who used under four hours of PAS per person per day. This group experienced a hospitalization rate of 13.7%. however, those individuals receiving more than 4 h per person per day experienced only a 10.2% hospitalization rate. Similar trends were seen for people who used PAS in combination with home delivered meals. However, those who used adult day care experienced higher hospitalization rates as the number of hours of personal assistive service increased: increasing from 6.8% among those with under 4 h, to 8.6% among those with 8 or more hours per person per day. CONCLUSION: Using medium and high levels of PAS was associated with lower hospitalization risk for people who PAS alone or in combination with delivered meals. By contrast, higher levels of PAS was associated with increased hospitalization for adult day users (both alone or in combination). Policy makers should consider offering higher levels of PAS to offset potential risk of hospitalization. Future research is needed to explain the association between adult day care and risk. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-022-03676-2.