Racial Disparities in Hospice Outcomes: A Race or Hospice-Level Effect?

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To determine whether there is racial variation in hospice enrollees in rates of hospitalization and hospice disenrollment and, if so, whether systematic differences in hospice provider patterns explain the variation.

Design

Longitudinal cohort study.

Setting

Hospice.

Participants

Medicare beneficiaries (N = 145,038) enrolled in a national random sample of hospices (N = 577) from the National Hospice Survey and followed until death (2009-10).

Measurements

We used Medicare claims data to identify hospital admissions, emergency department (ED) visits, and hospice disenrollment after hospice enrollment. We used a series of hierarchical models including hospice-level random effects to compare outcomes of blacks and whites.

Results

In unadjus

SUBMITTER: Rizzuto J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5967634 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature