Fig. 1.

Studies demonstrating increasing rates of hospital discharge rates to skilled nursing facilities for heart failure patients over the last three decades. Numbers are rounded to the nearest percentage. From 1980 to 1984, 6.8 % of hospitalized HF patients were discharged to SNFs compared to 13.4 % in 2000 to 2004 (Fang et al.) [19]. In 1990, 7.7 % of elderly hospitalized Medicare HF patients were discharged to SNFs compared to 14.0 % in 2000 (Brown et al.) [24]. In 1993, 13.2 % of hospitalized Medicare patients with a primary diagnosis of HF were discharged to a SNF compared to 19.6 % in 2006; percent discharge rates for the same time period for patients with a secondary diagnosis of HF were 8.9 and 21.6 %, respectively, (Bueno et al.) [4]. The median rate of discharge to SNFs for Medicare beneficiaries aged ≥65 increased from 19.6 % in 2006 to 20.8 % in 2008 (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) [23]