Dive Brief:
- ACO programs are changing the way healthcare is delivered, and thereby cutting hospital inpatient utilization across all ages and most lines of service, according to a new study from Health Affairs covered in Becker's Hospital Review.
- Researchers, who set out to look at the impact of value-based payment models on provision of care, examined care given in a seven-county area with 71 hospitals across the greater Chicago area and Illinois. The study covered 8.5 million residents.
- The researchers found that the 71 hospitals saw a drop in inpatients, from 1.0 2 million in 2010 to 970,000 in 2012, a drop which cut across all age groups; the impact was particularly marked among patients 65 years and older.
Dive Insight:
While it's always possible that researchers are some sort of anomaly during those years, it seems more likely that we're seeing a full-scale descent in inpatient numbers which will likely continue in coming years. This is bad news for hospitals' bottom line, but probably good news for the patients themselves, who arguably may be skipping inpatient stays because they are healthier. On the other hand, given that the country is still recovering from a severe depression, it could be that people are just avoiding hospitalizations for financial reasons. Time will tell which version of the truth is actually in play here.