The role of Medicaid home- and community-based services in use of Medicare post-acute care

Objective: Medicaid-funded long-term services and supports are increasingly provided through home- and community-based services (HCBS) to promote continued community living. While an emerging body of evidence examines the direct benefits and costs of HCBS, there may also be unexplored synergies with Medicare-funded post-acute care (PAC). This study aimed to provide empirical evidence on how the use of Medicaid HCBS influences Medicare PAC utilization among the dually enrolled.

Data sources: National Medicare claims, Medicaid claims, nursing home assessment data, and home health assessment data from 2016 to 2018.

Study design: We estimated the relationship between prior Medicaid HCBS use and PAC (skilled nursing facilities [SNF] or home health) utilization in a national sample of duals with qualifying index hospitalizations. We used inverse probability weights to create balanced samples on observed characteristics and estimated multivariable regression with hospital fixed effects and extensive controls. We also conducted stratified analyses for key subgroups.

Data extraction methods: The primary sample included 887,598 hospital discharges from community-dwelling duals who had an eligible index hospitalization between April 1, 2016, and September 30, 2018.

Principal findings: We found HCBS use was associated with a 9 percentage-point increase in the use of home health relative to SNF, conditional on using PAC, and a meaningful reduction in length of stay for those using SNF. In addition, in our primary sample, we found HCBS use to be associated with an overall increase in PAC use, given that the absolute increase in home health use was larger than the absolute decrease in SNF use. In other words, the use of Medicaid-funded HCBS was associated with a shift in Medicare-funded PAC use toward home-based settings.

Conclusion: Our findings indicate potential synergies between Medicaid-funded HCBS and increased use of home-based PAC, suggesting policymakers should cautiously consider these dynamics in HCBS expansion efforts.