Medicare Home Health Care in Rural America - Policy Analysis Brief

Beneficiary information was linked to agency information for the beneficiary’s primary home health agency. Approximately 6 percent of Medicare beneficiaries were served by more than one home health agency. In this case, we used the agency that furnished the most care to the beneficiary. Beneficiary characteristics include age, race (white or non-white), sex, diagnosis category, and geographic location. Agency characteristics include ownership, hospital-based or freestanding status, operation of branch offices, and geographic location. While we were able to ascertain if an agency operated branch offices, the location of those Medicare Home Health Care in Rural America