Percent of Medicare Enrollees Who Use Home-Based Health Care and Number of Visits Among Respondents to the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey by Plan Option.

Abstract

Using beneficiary reports of health care utilization from the 2019 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey Cost Supplement, we compare the prevalence of home-based care and number of visits among Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 and older, by plan option, excluding dual-eligible beneficiaries. Traditional Medicare (TM) beneficiaries were significantly more likely to receive home-based medical visits (10.4% vs. 8.0%) with greater differences observed in vulnerable subgroups. While average number of visits were comparable for TM (35.6) and Medicare Advantage (MA) (34.9) beneficiaries, the distribution of the number of visits varied by plan option. Compared with TM beneficiaries, MA beneficiaries were 4.5 times more likely to receive a single home-based medical visit (17.5% vs. 3.9%) and roughly 1.5 times more likely to have the fewest (two to four visits; 12.2% vs. 8.0%) and greatest number of home visits (90+ visits; 11.1% vs. 7.7%). Access to, and number of, home-based medical care differs significantly by plan option.