Home health utilization in the Veterans Health Administration: Are there rural and urban differences?

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Growing numbers of older adults need home health care, yhese services may be more difficult to access for rural Veterans, who represent one-third of Veterans Health Administration (VA) enrollees. Our objective was to examine whether home health use differs within VA based on rurality.

Methods

We examined national VA administrative data for 2019-2021 (January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2021) among Veterans ages ≥65 years. Using descriptive and multivariable analyses, we assessed whether rural versus urban Veterans differed in (1) the likelihood of using any home health and (2) for those who received ≥1 visit, number of visits received.

Results

Among home health users (n = 107,229, 33.1% rural), rural and urban Veterans were similar in age (77.0 vs. 77.2 years). Ru

SUBMITTER: Davila H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11635398 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature