Time trends in cancer and dementia related hospital admissions among Medicare fee-for-service population, 2013–2018

Spatiotemporal Patterns of Hospitalizations Among Older Adults With Co-Presence of Cancer and Dementia in US Counties: 2013–2018

“…The finding of a stable time trend in county-level hospitalization rates between 2013 and 2018 was consistent with the time trend for the same period at the national and state level in a prior study (Li et al, 2022). Expanding on the previous research that focused primarily on the temporal trend only, we examined the spatiotemporal pattern of county-level hospitalization rates using space-time analysis.…”

“…The results are consistent with the finding of reduced geographic variation in Medicare spending, of which hospital inpatient services represents the largest portion, from 2007 to 2018, and the most pronounced reductions were found in highest-spending decile regions (Sood et al, 2021; Zhang & Li, 2020). One potential contributing reason to the decreased clustering of high hospitalization could be the parallel trends of the overall decreasing hospitalization rates, re-admission rates, and a shift of management from inpatient to outpatient-based care and the development of home-based treatments in the US (Li et al, 2022; McWilliams et al, 2019). Another possible reason may be the US healthcare delivery system transition to value-based care models, such as accountable care organizations, in recent years (LaPointe, 2022; Johansen & Saunders, 2017; Patel et al, 2019).…”

“…However, the existing literature on this topic is limited. Despite the increasing prevalence of both cancer and dementia in the US, a previous study did not find an increase in the national- or state-level hospitalization rates among Medicare FFS patients (age ≥65 years) with the co-presence of cancer and dementia between 2013 and 2018 (Li et al, 2022). This is in contrast to the increasing trend reported in a study that focused on older adults (age ≥50 years) of all insurance types in a single state, New York, between 2007 and 2017 (Liu et al, 2021).…”

“…We used the primary and all available secondary diagnosis records in the same data from inpatient discharge claims to identify eligible patients. Details of the diagnosis code and algorithm were previously published (Li et al, 2022).…”

“…A recent study revealed that the prevalence of comorbid cancer and dementia ranged from 2.6% to 2.8% from 2010 to 2016 in the US (Parajuli et al, 2021). Another study found that about 11%–13% of Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) patients aged 65 years and over who were hospitalized between 2013 and 2018 had co-presence of cancer and dementia (Li et al, 2022). Treating dementia patients with other aging-associated illnesses is challenging, while the treatment for co-presence of cancer and dementia is particularly health services utilization-demanding (L. McWilliams, 2020; Wenkstetten-Holub et al, 2021).…”