Who Makes It Home: Skilled Nursing Facility to Community Transitions for Medicare Beneficiaries With Serious Mental Illness

BACKGROUND: Discharge to the home/community following a skilled nursing facility (SNF) stay is a key metric of high-quality care. However, achieving this in this domain remains challenging, especially for distinctly complex patients. Little research to date has examined within-group variation in discharge outcomes for persons with SMI, a population that reflects a growing proportion of SNF consumers in the U.S. METHODS: We leveraged a 4-year (2016-2019) 100% sample of Medicare claims data to examine individual- and organization-level predictors of SNF discharge location for persons with SMI. We first describe within-group differences for persons with SMI at the bivariate level. We then test linear probability models fully adjusted for individual and organization-level covariates, allowing for calculation of post-estimation marginal effects. RESULTS: We identified 118,325 unique SNF stays for people with SMI; 54% ended in discharge to the home/community. Patients with SMI who were discharged to the home/community (versus not) were significantly younger, more likely to be female, and were less likely to be dual-eligible or to have co-occurring ADRD. SMI patients discharged to the home/community were also significantly more likely to receive care in SNFs that were more integrated, higher quality, and saw a smaller share of SMI patients overall. These findings were reinforced by our fully adjusted regression analyses. DISCUSSION: This work finds within-group differences in characteristics associated with SNF discharge outcomes among the population of patients with SMI at both the person- and organization-levels. Policymakers should consider how to leverage value-based payment (VBP) programs, including new SNF-VBP requirements, in a way that more realistically accounts for the resources (e.g., time, staffing) required to coordinate care for this population. Similarly, an explicit focus on investments along the continuum should center around services that facilitate community retention (e.g., home- and community-based services).