To compare the probability of experiencing a potentially preventable hospitalization () between older dual eligible Medicaid home and community‐based service () users and nursing home residents.
Three years of Medicaid and Medicare claims data (2003–2005) from seven states, linked to area characteristics from the Area Resource File.
A primary diagnosis of an ambulatory care sensitive condition on the inpatient hospital claim was used to identify s. We used inverse probability of treatment weighting to mitigate the potential selection of versus nursing home use.
The most frequent conditions accounting for s were the same among the users and nursing home residents and included congestive heart failure, pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, urinary tract infection, and dehydration. Compared to nursing home residents, elderly users had an increased probability of experiencing both a and a non‐.
users’ increased probability for potentially and non‐s suggests a need for more proactive integration of medical and long‐term care.
