Differences in use of Veterans Health Administration and non-Veterans Health Administration hospitals by rural and urban Veterans after access expansions.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

To examine changes in rural and urban Veterans' utilization of acute inpatient care in Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and non-VHA hospitals following access expansion from the Veterans Choice Act, which expanded eligibility for VHA-paid community hospitalization.

Methods

Using repeated cross-sectional data of VHA enrollees' hospitalizations in 9 states (AZ, CA, CT, FL, LA, MA, NY, PA, and SC) between 2012 and 2017, we compared rural and urban Veterans' probability of admission in VHA and non-VHA hospitals by payer over time for elective and nonelective hospitalizations using multinomial logistic regression to adjust for patient-level sociodemographic features. We also used generalized linear models to compare rural and urban Veterans' travel distances to hospit

SUBMITTER: Dizon MP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11136881 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature