Background: Growth of physician owned hospitals (POH) in the United States has been restricted since the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Federal policy makers wanted to restrict POH, due to concerns that POH may cherry pick healthier patients, treat fewer Medicaid patients, and have higher service utilization. Data has shown an unclear [...]

Background: The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) enables Medicare-certified hospitals to provide inpatient-level care at home through their Acute Hospital Care at Home (AHCAH) initiative. A CMS report on 9/30/24 revealed demographic differences between AHCAH patients and traditional inpatients from the same hospitals. AHCAH patients were more likely to be white, live in [...]

Background: Hospital at Home (HaH) delivers hospital-level care to eligible patients in their homes, offering an alternative to traditional inpatient hospitalization. Longitudinal research has demonstrated that HaH can enhance patient outcomes, increase satisfaction, and decrease rates of hospital readmissions. Patients are first identified for HaH program enrollment through referrals by inpatient providers or our internal [...]