Uncovering Longitudinal Healthcare Utilization from Patient-Level Medical Claims Data

The objective of this study is to introduce methodology for studying longitudinal claims data observed at the patient level, with inference on the heterogeneity of healthcare utilization behaviors within large healthcare systems such as Medicaid. The proposed approach is model-based, allowing for visualization of longitudinal utilization behaviors using simple stochastic graphical networks. The approach is general, providing a framework for the study of other chronic conditions wherever longitudinal healthcare utilization data are available. Our methods are inspired by and applied to patient-level Medicaid claims for asthma-diagnosed children diagnosed observed over a period of five years, with a comparison of two neighboring states, Georgia and North Carolina.