Abstract 19

Objective:One approach to reduce health care spending and improve coordination of care is to pay for an episode of care rather than individual services. Anchoring these episodes around an index hospitalization is sensible because hospitalizations are a leading contributor to rising healthcare costs and an index admission provides a clear time to begin the episode. Understanding which care settings are responsible for a greater proportion of expenditures can inform efforts to improve efficiencies in the care provided. Our objectives were to: 1) characterize total episode payments for two conditions and 2) examine the care settings accounting for the highest proportions of the 30-day episode of care payment.