Behavioral Health Factors as Predictors of Emergency Department Use in the High-Risk, High-Cost Medicare Population

What is it about?

Despite recognition that behavioral health issues (psychiatric illness, substance abuse and psychosocial problems) are risk factors for both frequent emergency department (ED) visits and high-cost care, the presence of behavioral health issues is still often ignored and its impact on health care use is underestimated. The authors conducted a retrospective analysis of claims and electronic medical record data of a cohort of high-cost Medicare patients and found that specific behavioral health factors had a substantial and significant effect on the likelihood of making any ED visit and on the number of ED visits/patient. This suggests that attention to behavioral health factors as independent predictors of ED utilization may be useful in influencing ED use in high-cost populations.

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