Table 3.

Analysis of gee parameter estimates for predictors of risk-adjusted hospital readmission rates of rhcs (N = 3,918 RHC years)

Parameter Estimates of Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE)
Predictors	Standardized Estimate	Standard Error	95 % Confidence Limits		Z	Pr > |Z|
Contextual:
ACA period effect	−0.2173	0.0132	−0.2432	−0.1914	−16.42	<0.0001
Large rural areas	−0.0058	0.0290	−0.0628	0.0511	−0.20	0.8406
Small rural areas	0.0273	0.0291	−0.0297	0.0844	0.94	0.3474
Isolated rural areas	0.0387	0.0303	−0.0207	0.0981	1.28	0.2014
Alabama	−0.0380	0.0237	−0.0846	0.0085	−1.60	0.1092
Florida	−0.0527	0.0369	−0.1251	0.0197	−1.43	0.1535
Georgia	−0.1718	0.0269	−0.2246	−0.1190	−6.38	<0.0001
Kentucky	0.0242	0.0345	−0.0434	0.0919	−0.70	0.4827
North Carolina	−0.1344	0.0260	−0.1854	−0.0834	−5.16	<0.0001
South Carolina	−0.0852	0.0289	−0.1419	−0.0285	−2.94	0.0032
Tennessee	0.0103	0.0268	−0.0422	0.0628	0.38	0.7005
% African Americans in county	0.2114	0.0381	0.1368	0.2860	5.55	<0.0001
% Elderly in county	−0.0654	0.0246	−0.1137	−0.0171	−2.66	0.0079
Aggregated RHC or ecological:
% Dually eligible	0.1224	0.0261	0.0712	0.1737	4.68	<0.0001
Average age of patients	0.1196	0.0294	0.0620	0.1772	4.07	<0.0001
RHC use by native american patients	−0.0250	0.0126	−0.0497	−0.0002	−1.98	0.0478

Marginal R-squared =0.2152; QIC = 3975; QICU =3936

^*Z- statistics greater or equal to 1.96 are statistically significant at 0.05 level