Continuity of Care in Older Adults With Multiple Chronic Conditions: How Well Do Administrative Measures Correspond With Patient Experiences?

Continuity of care (COC) is a fundamental component of primary care and particularly important to older adults who are managing multiple chronic conditions. Administrative measures of continuity are often used to evaluate care coordination interventions, but it is not known whether administrative continuity are correlated with patient reports of continuity among older adults with multiple chronic conditions (MCCs). The objective of this study is to assess the concordance of administrative continuity indices and patient reports of continuity among older adults with MCCs. We use patient survey data collected from July to October 2011 linked to administrative claims data collected from July 2010 to December 2011 for 710 Medicare Advantage Chronic Care Special Needs Plan beneficiaries living in the US South. Among older adults with two or more conditions, the Usual Provider of Care Index was not associated with any patient experience measure: COC Index was associated with informational and management continuity items. These findings suggest that among older adults with MCCs, the administrative continuity measures have limited concordance with patient reported continuity measures.