Medicare Beneficiaries

This study updates ASPE’s previous analysis of the associations between COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths among Medicare beneficiaries and COVID-19 vaccination rates, with full year data through the end of 2021.

Opioid use was very common among the long-term care (LTC) residents in our sample. Perhaps reflecting their post-acute rehabilitative needs, discharged residents were more likely to have opioid use prior to LTC admission and at the beginning of the LTC stay.

The Improving Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act of 2014 requires a report to Congress on unified payment for Medicare post-acute care (PAC). Medicare PAC providers are skilled nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, long-term care hospitals, and home health agencies. Each PAC provider setting has a separate Medicare fee-for-service prospective payment system.

Newly released CMS skilled nursing facilities (SNF) Change of Ownership data (CHOW) data allows for a better understanding of how the nursing home ownership financial structures are changing. A total of 3,258 SNFs have been sold since 2016. Roughly 3.5% of skilled nursing facilities are sold in the US each year since then.

The National Alzheimer’s Project Act (NAPA) requires “the inclusion of ethnic and racial populations at higher risk for Alzheimer's or least likely to receive care, in clinical, research, and service efforts with the purpose of decreasing health disparities in Alzheimer's”.1 In order to meet this requirement, in 2020 the Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care, and Services recommended t

Prescriptions dispensed for antipsychotics in nursing homes and assisted living facilities increased since the beginning of the pandemic, with 20.8 thousand dispensed in 2020 compared to 20.5 thousand in 2019. This represents a 1.5% increase in total prescriptions since the beginning of the pandemic despite lower resident census levels in long-term care facilities (LTCFs).

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has recently given new flexibilities to Medicare Advantage (MA) plans to provide supplemental benefits that address long-term services and supports (LTSS) needs and social determinants of health (SDOH) among their members.

April 6, 2021Link to Printer Friendly Version in PDF Format (11 PDF pages)

Experience during the first six months of the pandemic shows that the risks of Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiaries contracting COVID-19 and subsequent hospitalization and mortality vary significantly by demographic characteristics, health status, and nursing home residence. There are several factors that indicate significantly elevated risk.

CHANGES IN HOME HEALTH CARE USE IN MEDICARE ADVANTAGE COMPARED TO TRADITIONAL MEDICARE, 2011-2016 Stephen Zuckerman, Laura Skopec, Joshua Aarons, Robert A. Berenson, Judith Feder, and Douglas Wissoker Urban Institute Peter J. Huckfeldt