A Comparative Study of Two Extended Care Benefits

An investigation of the effect of benefit membership by comparing utilization of the extended care program of Medicare and the UAW is reported here. Multivariate statistical techniques were employed to analyze the differences in length of stay and services received by the two groups of beneficiaries. Factors, other than the benefit, that might determine differences were controlled for. There were significant utilization differences between UAW and Medicare beneficiaries. UAW patients had a 288-day average stay (266 covered under the benefit), while Medicare patients had an average stay of 125 days (79 days under the benefit). These variations could not be accounted for by differences in social characteristics, facilities used, measures of social and physical functioning, primary diagnoses, or the number of diagnoses. Only one variable, benefit membership, had major predictive capacity and it accounted for a substantial portion of the explained variation in length of stay. Path analysis was used to further explicate the relationships between variables. The services that members of the two groups received were also compared. The most obvious finding here was not on differences between the two groups, but the relatively few services that members of either group received. Implications of the findings for extended care, their use, eligibility and alternatives are discussed

Economics · Health care · Medical diagnosis · Multivariate analysis · Multivariate statistics · Statistics · Demography · Geriatric Care and Nursing Homes · Healthcare innovation and challenges · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Mathematics · Medicine · Psychology · Gerontology

• Path Analysis

  Otis Dudley Duncan•American Journal of Sociology•1966

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