Home health care and hospice admissions and utilization are both on the rise, according to the latest data report from Excel Health.
Hospice admissions grew 4.6% from the third quarter of 2016 to the third quarter of 2017, rising to 313,500, according to the report, which is based on 100% of the most recent Medicare Part A and B claims data. Excel Health offers on-demand, cloud-based data solutions and has robust medical databases.
Over the same year-to-year time period, hospice utilization grew, with 48.8% in the third quarter of 2017 being the highest utilization to date, and 1.7 percentage points greater than in the third quarter of 2016. Utilization is measured as the number of decedents that had hospice care over the number of total decedents.
Hospice admissions grew year over year in all states except five—Maine, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York and Iowa. Wyoming experienced the highest admissions growth, rising 19.2% year over year.
Nearly all states also had higher utilization rates, with only two states—North Carolina and Arkansas—seeing a slight drop in utilization year over year.
Home health care admissions grew 0.7% in the second quarter of 2017 from the same three months in 2016, reversing a negative trend seen over the previous few quarters. Fourteen states saw a decline in admissions year over year. Wyoming had the highest growth in admissions—13.2% year over year.
Utilization remained near its constant rate, around 1.6% for all Medicare beneficiaries in the second quarter 2017, according to the report. All states saw higher utilization of home health care services, with both Massachusetts and Mississippi growing 2.4% year over year.
As more baby boomers age into Medicare eligibility, the proportionate demand for home health care has dropped, as the average age of Medicare beneficiaries declines. Demand will likely rise again as a proportion of the Medicare population as baby boomers age.
The growth of home health care and hospice services is not totally surprising, as 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day.
From the third quarter of 2016 to the same period in 2017, the total number of Medicare beneficiaries rose 2.3%, from 56.1 million to 57.5 million, according to the report. And the growth of beneficiaries also means spending will rise. By 2027, the rate of Medicare spending as a percentage of total federal spending is expected to rise to 17.5%.
Written by Amy Baxter
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