Regional variation in utilization of hospital and post-acute services persists despite whether seniors are enrolled in traditional Medicare or Medicare Advantage plans, according to new research published in Health Affairs. The authors are among the first to examine variation for seniors receiving fee-for-service versus managed care services, as opposed to examining difference in spending between seniors and commercially insured populations. While the authors posited that managed care plans might have stronger incentives to control post-acute care utilization, they didn’t find less variation in use rates among managed care enrollees compared to fee-for service patients, and in some case they found more. The authors conclude that “variations in post-acute care for older adults likely reflect local factors that operate irrespective of enrollment in health plans of different types.” The article “Regional Variations: The Use of Hospitals, Home Health, and Skilled Nursing in Traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage” by researchers at the Brown University School of Public Health appears in the August 2018 edition of Health Affairs, vol. 37, no. 8. (www.healthaffairs.org).