Social Determinants of Health – What Are They and How Do They Affect Post-Acute Care in Comp?

By Stan Smith, MBA, Senior Vice President – Sentinel Services, Prodigy Care Services

Over the last couple of decades, increasing attention has been paid to a group of factors known as Social Determinants of Health (SDOH). These impact healthcare delivery services and shape patient outcomes in all payer funding sources.

In workers’ comp, they can affect an injured workers’ response to treatment and result in hospital re-admissions and a higher utilization of healthcare services over the life of treatment.1,2,3,4,5 On a journey through the post-acute care (PAC) continuum, an injured worker interacts with multiple levels of healthcare services, as they move from long-term acute care hospitals to residential rehab, brain and spinal cord injury centers, skilled nursing facilities, and home healthcare.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the non-medical factors that influence health outcomes. They are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life.”2 Continue reading on WorkCompWire.