CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDICARE-ELIGIBLE HOME CARE CLIENTS

Abstract Providers, consumers, and legislators seem to agree that today's home care population is older and sicker; however, very few data are available on what characterizes today's Medicare home care clients. This descriptive study was designed to identify the characteristics of Medicare‐eligible home care clients, and define the scope and complexity of health‐related problems in this group. Data were collected by retrospective review of 100 randomly selected clinical records from a large not‐for‐profit home care agency. Findings showed that chronic health care problems predominated, that over half of the sample had at least moderate functional impairment, the female recipients tended to be older and rely on informal caregivers, that females were usually more functionally impaired than males, and that wives usually provided care to male clients. The findings demonstrate that the Medicare home care population is not monolithic, but a diverse aggregate that may have age and gender variants. Copyright © 1988, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved