Community, Hospital, and Patient Factors Contributing to Ethnoracial Disparities in Follow-Up After Psychiatric Hospitalization

What is it about?

Among 17,488 Medicaid recipients treated in hospital psychiatric units, 60.1% attended outpatient care visits within 30 days. Non-Latinx Asian/Pacific Islander patients had the highest follow-up (71.9%) followed by Non-Latinx White (64.1%), Latinx (62.0%), Non-Latinx Native American/Alaskan Native (56.2%), and Non-Latinx Black (54.6%) patients. Community factors, specifically urban/rural and county poverty status, accounted for the greatest amount of variation between ethnoracial groups in timely follow-up care post-inpatient discharge. Patients with greater levels of adverse social determinants require more complex discharge planning. Inpatient psychiatric teams cannot directly address neighborhood disarray or county poverty, but they can provide additional care transition and care management resources to patients experiencing these social circumstances.

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