Post–Acute Care Facility Utilization and Outcomes Among Medicare Beneficiaries Undergoing Inpatient Cancer - Takeaways - MDSpire

Postacute Care Use and Outcomes in Medicare Beneficiaries Hospitalized for Cancer Surgery

By
Daniel E. Lage
Mary Beth Landrum
Alex Melamed
Alexi A. Wright
Robert E. Wolf
Nancy L. Keating
October 28, 2026

Jama Network Open

Share

1

This cross-sectional study included 1,477,585 Medicare beneficiaries who underwent inpatient cancer surgery from 2010 through 2022.
2

Overall, 16.0% of patients were discharged to postacute care facilities: 11.4% to skilled nursing facilities and 4.6% to inpatient rehabilitation or long-term acute care facilities.
3

Postacute care use was more likely among patients aged 80 years or older, those with greater comorbidity, dual Medicare-Medicaid eligibility, or metastatic disease.
4

Adjusted odds of postacute care use in 2022 were nearly half those in 2010, and utilization varied substantially by cancer type.
5

Compared with patients discharged home, those discharged to postacute care had higher 30-day readmission rates (21.9% vs 9.5%) and fewer median days at home within 90 days (68 vs 90).

Original Source(s)

Jama Network Open

Post–Acute Care Facility Utilization and Outcomes Among Medicare Beneficiaries Undergoing Inpatient Cancer

by Daniel E. Lage, Mary Beth Landrum, Alex Melamed, Alexi A. Wright, Robert E. Wolf, Nancy L. Keating
October 28, 2026

Related Content

Jama Network Open

Error in Number of Cancers

October 27, 2026

Baptist Health South Florida

A New Era for Pancreatic Cancer: How Baptist Health Research Helped Get Us Here

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma, the most common form of pancreatic cancer, accounts for roughly 90 to 95 percent of cases. It's notoriously difficult to catch early, because symptoms often don't appear until the disease has already spread

by
September 24, 2026
11 min

Head And Neck

Predictors of Delayed and Omitted Postoperative Radiotherapy After Laryngectomy for pT4 Laryngeal Cancer