cost of healthcare

In healthcare, we tend to focus on the patient’s disease, rather than symptoms, though symptoms are central to the patient experience. Symptoms have been found in other settings to be poorly recognized and managed, yet drive healthcare utilization, cost, and patient satisfaction. In home healthcare (HHC) symptoms have not been deeply explored. We examined a 5% sample of 2011–2012 Medicare OASIS, MEDPAR, and Carrier file data (N=2,061,168) to better understand how symptoms effect care.