The Top States for Home Health Visits

The number of annual home health visits has declined steadily over the past few years; however, there have been some dramatic exceptions when looking from state-to-state, new industry research finds.

Nationally, home health visits are down 2.2% at approximately 112.2 million visits in 2013. In 2012, the market logged roughly 114.8 million, according to Healthcare Market Research (HMR) data that analyzes national and state-by-state trends over the last six years.

Despite more than half of states experiencing declines in 2013, one quarter of states logged at least 5% or higher visit growth compared to the previous year.

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Rhode Island reported the highest home health visit growth in 2013 at 12.63%, followed by Idaho, which experienced a 11.02% increase in visits compared to 2012. The states were joined by Delaware (9.8%), Iowa (8.69%) and Minnesota (7.84%) to round out the top-five growth spots for home health visits. 

Home health visits have been trending downward since 2009, when the market peaked at just over 129 million, HMR notes. Since then, annual visits have fallen by rates of 3.44% in 2010; 4.91% in 2011; and 3.27% in 2012.

Of states reporting the sharpest decreases in visits, Tennessee had the largest drop at 11.3% in 2013. Next behind was Kentucky, which saw visits fall 9.75% from 2012; Louisiana, where visits dropped 8.21%; along with Texas and Arizona, which experienced declines in home health visits of 7.67% and 6.58%, respectively.

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View the Healthcare Market Resources data.

Written by Jason Oliva

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