Cross‐sectional Analysis of Emergency Department and Acute Care Utilization Among Medicare Beneficiaries

Background We sought to develop a claims‐based definition of unscheduled care to describe the use and role of the emergency department (ED) in providing unscheduled care to vulnerable older adult populations. Methods This study was a cross‐sectional analysis of national 20% sample of Medicare beneficiaries included in the 2012 Chronic Condition Warehouse data set. We measured three outcomes: the number of ED visits per 1,000 Medicare...