Home health care services increased costs without decreasing risk of complications
Published results showed patients who received home health care services after total hip arthroplasty had higher costs, increased 30-day readmission rates and similar complication rates compared with patients who discharged under self-care.
Sean B. Sequeira, MD, and colleagues retrospectively reviewed data on a cohort of 7,243 patients who received home health services after THA and a propensity-score matched cohort of 72,430 patients who were discharged home under self-care after THA from 2010 to 2019. According to the study, outcome measures included costs of care, readmissions, early returns to the ED and complication rates.
Researchers found 1-year costs of care were $14,236.97 in the home health care services cohort and $12,817.12 in the self-care cohort.
“This finding is particularly surprising considering that home health was introduced and frequently implemented in an effort to decrease health care expenditures,” the researchers wrote in the study.
They found more 90-day return to ED visits and readmissions among the home health care services cohort compared with than self-care cohort. They also noted the home health care services cohort had a longer length of stay compared with the self-care cohort (0.62 days vs. 0.38 days, respectively).
“These findings may suggest that patients may need to be re-evaluated for home health care services and/or these services may need to be restructured to provide the most value for at-risk patients,” the researchers concluded.
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