Health-related social needs (HRSNs), such as housing quality, are important contributors to older adults’ health. Unmet HRSNs are prevalent among older adults in Medicare, which is the federal health insurance program for older adults in the United States. Medicare beneficiaries have an option to receive benefits from private insurers—Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. Receiving capitated payments for enrolling Medicare beneficiaries, private MA plans have incentives to reduce costs. Using cost savings, MA plans can offer supplemental benefits that are not covered in the Medicare standard benefit. Supplemental benefits were traditionally limited only to medical services, such as dental care. However, MA plans were recently allowed to provide supplemental benefits that address HRSNs. MA plans have steadily adopted housing quality benefits (e.g., pest control, indoor air quality) since 2020. This study examined the relation between MA plans’ provision of housing quality services and acute care utilization, including emergency department [ED] use and hospitalizations. We leveraged MA plans’ staggered adoption of the housing benefit over time and used a quasi-experimental design to obtain causal estimates of benefit impacts. Analyzing national MA encounter data, we found that MA’s housing quality service benefits reduced ED use by 1.5 percentage points among high-risk, highly frail enrollees with a respiratory condition. While significant, this is a small effect. We found no significant association between offering housing quality services and enrollees’ acute care utilization. As more plans adopt supplemental benefits addressing HRSNs, further evaluation of the impacts of those benefits on older adults’ health outcomes is needed.

Authors:
Jeah Jung, George Mason University, United States
Ge Song, George Mason University, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Jeah Jung is currently a Professor in the Department of Health Administration and Policy at George Mason University in the United States

See this presentation on the full schedule – Thursday Schedule

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