A Profile of Home Health Users in 1992

Recently, the use of home health services by Medicare beneficiaries has been growing. From 1987 to 1992, the percentage of all enrollees receiving home health rose from 4.8 to 7.2 percent, while the average number of visits among users increased from 23 to 54. This article uses the 1992 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) to profile home health users. In addition to providing descriptive information about who uses Medicare home health, Tobit models are estimated to determine the factors that predict home health utilization and reimbursement. Various policy options for redesigning the home health benefit are also discussed.