• Jeffrey H Silber, Paul R Rosenbaum, Shawna R Calhoun, Joseph G Reiter, Alexander S Hill, Orit Even-Shoshan, and William J Greeley.
• Center for Outcomes Research, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA; Department of Pediatrics, The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA; Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA; Department of Health Care Management, The Wharton School, The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; The Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. Electronic address: silber@email.chop.edu.
• J. Am. Coll. Surg. 2017 May 1; 224 (5): 805814805-814.

BackgroundWith increasing Medicaid coverage, it has become especially important to determine whether racial differences exist within the Medicaid system. We asked whether disparities exist in hospital practice and patient outcomes between matched black and white Medicaid children with chronic conditions undergoing surgery.Study DesignWe conducted a matched cohort study, matching 6,398 pairs within states on detailed patient characteristics using data from 25 states contributing adequate Medicaid Analytic eXtract claims for admissions of children with chronic conditions undergoing the same surgical procedures between January 1, 2009 and November 30, 2010 for ages 1 to 18 years.ResultsThe black patient 30-day revisit rate was 19.3% vs 19.8% in matched white patients (p = 0.61), 30-day readmission rates were 7.0% vs 6.9% (p = 0.43), and 30-day mortality rates were 0.38% vs 0.19% (p = 0.06), respectively. A higher percentage of black patients exceeded their own state's individual median length of stay (44.0% vs 39.6%; p < 0.001) and median ICU length of stay (25.9% vs 23.8%; p < 0.001). Intensive care unit use was higher in black patients (25.9% vs 23.8%; p < 0.001). After adjusting for multiple testing, only 2 states were found to differ significantly by race (New York for length of stay and New Jersey for ICU use).ConclusionsWe did not observe disparities in 30-day revisits and readmissions for chronically ill children in Medicaid undergoing surgery, and only slight differences in length of stay, ICU length of stay, and use of the ICU, where blacks displayed somewhat elevated rates compared with white controls.Copyright © 2017 American College of Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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