Patterns of Adapting to Health (PATH) as Drivers of Hospital Care Revenues: A Case Study
Summary
A new serious diagnosis or disease condition prompts patients to adapt by seeking care, potentially leading them to seek and receive hospital-based services. Question: Do patient’s health-related preferences, goals and adaptive habits reflected in their dominant Pattern of Adapting to Health (PATH) influence demand for hospital services as measured in objective health insurance plan claims? Approach. Facility expenditures, mainly generated by hospital-based care, were tracked for three years across a sample of over 8,295 health plan members. Each member’s dominant Pattern of Adapting to Health (PATH) was identified using a mail survey. By the end of the three-year time frame, 5,721 members generated one or more hospital claims. Analysis: Logistic regression was used to assess if the PATH impacted the odds of having at least one facility claim over the three-year time frame. Nonparametric testing was used to assess if the average rank of total facility claims over three years were significantly different across the PATH. Finally, the percentage of total facility claims over the three years accounted for by each PATH were estimated by multiplying the average total facility claims by a population of 100,000. Results: The member’s dominant PATH significantly impacted the odds of having or not having a facility claim over the three years. Four of the nine PATH had greater than 50% greater odds of generating a facility claim. The member’s total average facility claims were also significantly different across the PATH with two generating over $4,000 in additional hospital claims per member over the average total facility claims for the entire sample. Conclusions: A patient’s health-related preferences, goals, and habits identified by the PATH have important impacts on the utilization of hospital services and the amount of hospital revenues generated. Patients dominated by PATH 7 accounted for the largest single share of total facility revenues. Implications: A patient’s adaptive health behavior pattern as identified by the PATH offers greater value to hospital marketers by providing greater insight into the patient making health care decisions – something disease-specific marketing cannot provide.
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A new serious diagnosis or disease condition prompts patients to adapt by seeking care, potentially leading them to seek and receive hospital-based services. Question: Do patient’s health-related preferences, goals and adaptive habits reflected in their dominant Pattern of Adapting to Health (PATH) influence demand for hospital services as measured in objective health insurance plan claims? Approach. Facility expenditures, mainly generated by hospital-based care, were tracked for three years across a sample of over 8,295 health plan members. Each member’s dominant Pattern of Adapting to Health (PATH) was identified using a mail survey. By the end of the three-year time frame, 5,721 members generated one or more hospital claims. Analysis: Logistic regression was used to assess if the PATH impacted the odds of having at least one facility claim over the three-year time frame. Nonparametric testing was used to assess if the average rank of total facility claims over three years were significantly different across the PATH. Finally, the percentage of total facility claims over the three years accounted for by each PATH were estimated by multiplying the average total facility claims by a population of 100,000. Results: The member’s dominant PATH significantly impacted the odds of having or not having a facility claim over the three years. Four of the nine PATH had greater than 50% greater odds of generating a facility claim. The member’s total average facility claims were also significantly different across the PATH with two generating over $4,000 in additional hospital claims per member over the average total facility claims for the entire sample. Conclusions: A patient’s health-related preferences, goals, and habits identified by the PATH have important impacts on the utilization of hospital services and the amount of hospital revenues generated. Patients dominated by PATH 7 accounted for the largest single share of total facility revenues. Implications: A patient’s adaptive health behavior pattern as identified by the PATH offers greater value to hospital marketers by providing greater insight into the patient making health care decisions – something disease-specific marketing cannot provide.
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