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Levy C, Whitfield EA, Gutman R. Medical foster home is less costly than traditional nursing home care. Health services research. 2019 Dec 1; 54(6):1346-1356.
Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects. OBJECTIVE: To compare the costs of Community Nursing Homes (CNHs) to Medical Foster Homes (MFHs) at Veteran Health Administration (VHA) Medical Centers that established MFH programs. DATA SOURCES: Episode and costs data were derived from VA and Medicare files (inpatient, outpatient, emergency room, skilled nursing facility, dialysis, and hospice). STUDY DESIGN: Propensity scores matched 354 MFH to 1693 CNH Veterans on demographics, clinical characteristics, health care utilization, and costs. DATA EXTRACTION METHODS: Data were retrieved for years 2010-2011 from the VA Corporate Data Warehouse, VA Health Data Repository, and the VA MFH Program through the VA Informatics and Computing Infrastructure (VINCI). PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: After matching on unique characteristics of MFH Veterans, costs were $71.28 less per day alive compared to CNH care. Home-based and mental health care costs increased with savings largely attributable to avoiding CNH residential care. When average out-of-pocket payments by Veterans of $74/day are considered, MFH is at least cost neutral. Mortality was 12 percent higher among matched Veterans in CNHs. CONCLUSIONS: MFHs may serve as alternatives to traditional CNH care that do not increase total costs with mortality benefits. Future work should examine the differences for functional disability subgroups.
