Statistical Brief #4

A Comparison of Potentially Preventable Hospital Readmissions where Preceding Admission was a Behavioral Health, Medical or Surgical Admission: New York State Medicaid Program, 2007

  • Brief is also available in Portable Document Format (PDF)

New York State Department of Health
Division of Quality and Evaluation
Office of Health Insurance Programs

Wendy Patterson, Michael Lindsey, Patrick Roohan

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Medicaid inpatient admissions were divided into three groups based on diagnoses present at admission: behavioral health (mental health or substance abuse), medical, and surgical.
  • Medical admissions accounted for the majority of the admissions at-risk of being followed by a potentially preventable readmission (52.8%), while behavioral health admissions accounted for 31.2% and surgical for 16.0% of the at-risk admissions.
  • The 30 day potentially preventable readmission (PPR) rate for the behavioral health admissions was 17.4%, substantially higher than the PPR rate for medical or surgical admissions (9.5% and 9.0%, respectively).
  • The average number of PPRs for a behavioral health admission was 1.61 compared to 1.47 for medical and 1.35 for surgical admissions.
  • Behavioral health admissions were most frequently followed by PPRs classified as Major Diagnostic Category (MDC) 20 - Alcohol/Drug Use and MDC 19 - Mental Diseases. Medical and surgical admissions were most frequently followed by PPRs associated with MDC 5 - Circulatory Disorders.
  • Regardless of the reason for admission, the majority of all PPRs occurred within 15 days of the preceding admission.