Racial, Ethnic, and Socioeconomic Inequities in Access to Left Atrial Appendage Occlusion.

ABSTRACT: Background Inequitable access to high-technology therapeutics may perpetuate inequities in care. We examined the characteristics of US hospitals that did and did not establish left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) programs, the patient populations those hospitals served, and the associations between zip code-level racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic composition and rates of LAAO among Medicare beneficiaries living within large metropolitan areas with LAAO programs. Methods and Results We conducted cross-sectional analyses of Medicare fee-for-service claims for beneficiaries aged 66 years or older between 2016 and 2019. We identified hospitals establishing LAAO programs during the study period. We used generalized linear mixed models to measure the association between zip code-level racial,

SUBMITTER: Reddy KP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10111439 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature