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One question is whether these results apply to other health plans beyond Medicare Advantage contracts and whether certain types of contracts may be more affected by disasters than others. For example, larger health systems may be able to triage patients to other sites of care and shift patients to facilities that are unaffected by disasters that are still within their system.
They also may have the capability to create surge capacity when needed and better utilize telehealth services. So, it’s possible that large health systems may be less affected by disasters, for example.
Future studies could attempt to answer these questions by analyzing data on other types of health care entities beyond Medicare Advantage plans and using more years of data with more disaster events in the analysis.