Medicare Home Health Use Among Consumers With Dementia On The Increase

The use of Medicare home health services among beneficiaries aged 68 years and older with dementia increased between 2010 and 2019. Among beneficiaries without dementia during the same period, home health utilization decreased.

The trends were revealed in a study that included 13.6 million traditional Medicare beneficiaries between 2010 and 2022. About 27.7% had a diagnosis of dementia. Home health utilization, for both post-acute care (initiated within 14 days of an institutional setting) or community-initiated (unrelated to institutional care), was reported in terms of “spells,” which encompassed an individual’s initial episode plus subsequent recertifications.

The . . .