Health Care Contact Days Among Older Adults After Emergency Department Visits: A Cross‐Sectional Analysis

ABSTRACT Study Objective Emergency department (ED) visits among older adults represent critical transition points in health care, often resulting in substantial downstream utilization. We aimed to quantify health care contact days in the 30 days following a treat‐and‐release ED visit among older adults and examine associations with demographic and clinical characteristics. Methods We conducted a pooled cross‐sectional analysis of 2016–2021 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey data. The sample included treat‐and‐release ED visits among beneficiaries ≥ 65 years. Health care contact days were categorized as institutional (ED, hospital, skilled nursing facility, hospice) and ambulatory (outpatient visits, labs, imaging, procedures, or treatments). We applied zero‐inflated Poisson regression to estimate the likelihood and intensity of health care contact. Results The analytic sample comprised 10,964 treat‐and‐release ED visits. Within 30 days, 22.5% of visits resulted in institutional contact and 84.4% in ambulatory contact. On average, each ED visit was followed by 4.3 total contact days (3.0 ambulatory, 1.3 institutional) within 30 days. Having ≥ 2 chronic conditions was associated with greater odds of both institutional (OR: 1.46, 95% CI: 1.28–1.66) and ambulatory contact (OR: 1.44, 95% CI: 1.25–1.66). Dementia was associated with reduced odds of ambulatory contact (OR: 0.51, 95% CI: 0.37–0.72). Conclusions Older adults experience frequent and sustained health care contact following treat‐and‐release ED visits, with particularly high intensity among those with multi‐morbidity. Reduced ambulatory follow‐up among patients with dementia highlights a potential gap in care coordination after ED discharge.