Dietary Counseling Documentation Among Patients Recently Hospitalized for Cardiovascular Disease

Background Diet intervention forms the cornerstone for cardiovascular disease (CVD) management. Objective The objective was to measure the frequency of dietary counseling documentation for patients recently hospitalized with CVD. Design This was an observational study. Participants and setting Patients were included from the Michigan Value Collaborative Multipayer Claims Registry from October 2015 to February 2020. Main outcome measure The study measured the frequency of medical claims that document dietary counseling <= 90 days after hospitalization (ie, an episode of care) for CVD events (coronary artery bypass grafting, acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, and percutaneous coronary intervention). Dietary counseling documentation was de fined as having an encounter-level International Classi fication of Diseases 10th Revision code for dietary counseling or current procedural terminology code for medical nutrition therapy or cardiac rehabilitation. Statistical analyses performed Multivariable logistic regression was used to measure variation in documentation across gender, age, comorbidities, hospital geography, CVD event, and insurer. Results There were 175,631 episodes of care (congesitve heart failure 47.1%, acute myocardial infarction 28.7%, percutaneous coronary intervention 17.0%, and coronary artery bypass grafting 7.3%) among 146,185 individuals. Most episodes occurred among men (55.8%) and those older than age 65 years (71.9%). Dietary counseling was documented for 22.8% of episodes and was more common as cardiac rehabilitation (18.6%) than other encounter types (5.1%). In multivariable analysis, there was lower odds for dietary counseling documentation among those older than age 65 years (odds ratio [OR] 0.77; P < .001), women (OR 0.83; P < .001), with chronic kidney disease (OR 0.74; P < .001), or diabetes (OR 0.95; P < .001), but greater odds for those with obesity (OR 1.28; P < .001) and nonmetropolitan hospitals (OR 1.31; P < .001). Compared with coronary artery bypass grafting, acute myocardial infarction (OR 0.29; P < .001), confestive heart failure (OR 0.12; P < .001), and percutaneous coronary intervention (OR 0.36; P < .001) episodes had lower odds to have dietary counseling coded. Compared with Traditional Medicare, Medicaid and Medicare Advantage health maintenance organization plans had lower odds, whereas Commercial or Medicare Advantage preferred provider organization and Commercial health maintenance organization plans had higher odds to have dietary counseling documented. Results were mostly similar when evaluated by race. Conclusions Dietary counseling was infrequently documented after hospitalization for CVD episodes in medical claims in a Michigan-based multipayer claims database with large variation by reason for hospitalization and patient factors.