Nursing home costs for those dually entitled to Medicare and Medicaid

The focus of this article is the impact of nursing home care on total Medicare and Medicaid expenditures for the aged population entitled to both programs. To determine these costs for 1981, data in the Health Care Financing Administration's Medicare Statistical System were linked, for the first time, to data in the Medicaid system for four States. Also examined are expenditure patterns for survivors and decedents using nursing home services. Results indicate that the two most significant factors influencing costs or the dually entitled elderly are the use of nursing home services and the costs of care in the last months of life. An unexpected finding was that of the 73 percent who neither died nor were in a nursing home, per capita expenditures were remarkedly constant across all age groups.