Hospices and Home Health Agencies: Data From the 1991 National Health Provider Inventory

Advance Data 257.  This report presents information on the characteristics of hospices and home health agencies in the United States. Data are shown by agency characteristics, hospice and home health clients, and average number of clients per agency. The data was collected from the 1991 National Health Provider Inventory Survey (NHPI), formerly called the National Master Facility Inventor Survey . The NHPI included a set of questions that were mailed to nursing homes, board and care homes, home health agencies, and hospices.

Data Highlights:

In 1991 there were 7,804 hospices and home health agencies in the United States. The majority (88 percent) were home health agencies.

Of the 1,263,704 home health and hospice care clients, 1,189,464 received only home health care, 43,487 clients received only hospice care, and 30,753 received both types of care.

A majority of agencies were located in the South (39 percent) and Midwest (29 percent) regions.

The average number of clients per home care agencies ranged from a low of 28 in Wyoming to a high of 408 in New York.

This page last reviewed January 11, 2007