Background:  A small population of patients disproportionately consume an increasing share of medical resources.  These super-utilizers often have complex medical and psychosocial conditions that require carefully coordinated, individualized care.  As this population drives unplanned readmissions, programs to reduce readmissions may create unintended incentives to direct super-utilizers to another hospital system.   This study was designed to [...]

Background: Care fragmentation is associated with a number of clinical and socio-demographic features which have been thought to increase hospital utilization as well as morbidity and mortality. Patients who receive fragmented care at the hospital level are often underinsured and uninsured. It is unclear to what degree lack of insurance and subsequently lack of continuous [...]