Table 2.
Estimates of pre-policies (before May 2013) and post-policies (after January 2016) trends in live discharge and length-of-stay, overall, and within ADRD and lung cancer subsamplesa
| All patient diagnoses | ADRD | Lung cancer | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Estimate (95% CI) | p-value | Estimate (95% CI) | p-value | Estimate (95% CI) | p-value | |
| Percent live discharges | ||||||
| pre-policies slope | −0.13 (−0.14, −0.12) | <.001 | −0.10 (−0.11, −0.09) | <.001 | −0.13 (−0.14, −0.11) | <.001 |
| post-policies slope | 0 (−0.01, 0) | 0.409 | −0.03 (−0.04, −0.02) | <.001 | −0.04 (−0.05, −0.02) | <.001 |
| pre-policies vs. post-policies p-value b | <.001 | <.001 | <.001 | |||
| Mean length-of-stay | ||||||
| pre-policies slope | 0.12 (0.1, 0.14) | <.001 | 0.27 (0.23, 0.3) | <.001 | 0 (−0.02, 0.03) | 0.867 |
| post-policies slope | 0.41 (0.39, 0.42) | <.001 | 0.57 (0.54, 0.6) | <.001 | 0.02 (0, 0.04) | 0.077 |
| pre-policies vs. post-policies p-value b | <.001 | <.001 | 0.228 | |||
| Percent stays exceeding 60 days | ||||||
| pre-policies slope | 0.04 (0.03, 0.04) | <.001 | 0.04 (0.03, 0.05) | <.001 | 0.01 (−0.01, 0.03) | 0.571 |
| post-policies slope | 0.14 (0.14, 0.15) | <.001 | 0.13 (0.12, 0.14) | <.001 | 0.02 (0, 0.03) | 0.065 |
| pre-policies vs. post-policies p-value b | <.001 | <.001 | 0.37 | |||
| Percent stays exceeding 180 days | ||||||
| pre-policies slope | 0.04 (0.03, 0.04) | <.001 | 0.05 (0.04, 0.06) | <.001 | 0 (−0.01, 0.02) | 0.61 |
| post-policies slope | 0.14 (0.14, 0.15) | <.001 | 0.15 (0.14, 0.16) | <.001 | 0.02 (0, 0.03) | 0.013 |
| pre-policies vs. post-policies p-value b | <.001 | <.001 | 0.15 | |||
Abbreviations: ADRD=Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias; CI=confidence interval.
Estimated from models adjusted for month indicators + hospice fixed effects + hospice time-varying covariates (ownership (for-profit vs. non-profit, free-standing vs. affiliated), total registered nurses, total employees, monthly demographic distributions (age, gender, race/ethnicity) of new enrollees, monthly percent of total care days provided at the routine home care level and continuous home care level, and monthly percent of care days provided in the community/home setting, nonskilled long-term care setting, and skilled nursing home/inpatient setting) + county time-varying covariates (total population, percent population aged 65+ and 85+, gender and race/ethnicity distributions, number of active physicians, rural-urban setting, percent below poverty level, median household income)
p-values indicates whether the pre-policies slope and post-policies slope presented in the two preceding rows are significantly different, i.e. whether we can statistically reject H0: pre-policy slope − post-policy slope = 0.