Surgeon Sex and Health Care Costs for Patients Undergoing Common Surgical Procedures.

Importance: Prior research has shown differences in postoperative outcomes for patients treated by female and male surgeons. It is important to understand, from a health system and payer perspective, whether surgical health care costs differ according to the surgeon's sex. Objective: To examine the association between surgeon sex and health care costs among patients undergoing surgery. Design, Setting, and Participants: This population-based, retrospective cohort study included adult patients undergoing 1 of 25 common elective or emergent surgical procedures between January 1, 2007, and December 31, 2019, in Ontario, Canada. Analysis was performed from October 2022 to March 2023. Exposure: Surgeon sex. Main Outcome and Measure: The primary outcome was total health care costs assessed 1 year following surgery. Secondarily, total health care costs at 30 and 90 days, as well as specific cost categories, were assessed. Generalized estimating equations were used with procedure-level clustering to compare costs between patients undergoing equivalent surgeries performed by female and male surgeons, with further adjustment for patient-, surgeon-, anesthesiologist-, hospital-, and procedure-level covariates. Results: Among 1 165 711 included patients, 151 054 were treated by a female surgeon and 1 014 657 were treated by a male surgeon. Analyzed at the procedure-specific level and accounting for patient-, surgeon-, anesthesiologist-, and hospital-level covariates, 1-year total health care costs were higher for patients treated by male surgeons ($24 882; 95% CI, $20 780-$29 794) than female surgeons ($18 517; 95% CI, $16 080-$21 324) (adjusted absolute difference, $6365; 95% CI, $3491-9238; adjusted relative risk, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.05-1.14). Similar patterns were observed at 30 days (adjusted absolute difference, $3115; 95% CI, $1682-$4548) and 90 days (adjusted absolute difference, $4228; 95% CI, $2255-$6202). Conclusions and Relevance: This analysis found lower 30-day, 90-day, and 1-year health care costs for patients treated by female surgeons compared with those treated by male surgeons. These data further underscore the importance of creating inclusive policies and environments supportive of women surgeons to improve recruitment and retention of a more diverse and representative workforce.

Medicare Two-Midnight Rule Accelerated Shift To Observation Stays.

During the past two decades several policies have attempted to replace inappropriate hospital inpatient stays with observation hospital stays, where patients receive hospital care but are classified as outpatients. The Two-Midnight rule, adopted in October 2013 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, states that more highly reimbursed inpatient payment is appropriate if care is expected to last at least two midnights; otherwise, observation stays should be used. For hospitals, the administrative burden associated with making these status determinations is substantial. We found that after the Two-Midnight rule was implemented, potentially inappropriate short inpatient stays decreased immediately by 2.0 stays per 1,000 beneficiaries and potentially more appropriate short outpatient stays increased immediately by 1.8 stays per 1,000 beneficiaries, hastening a preexisting trend in this direction. However, after this initial improvement, the rate of change slowed to a new steady state. Given the steady state and ongoing administrative resources needed, it is time to reconsider the value of status determination required by the Two-Midnight rule.

Trends in medicare spending across strata of resource utilization among older individuals in the United States.

BACKGROUND: Health care spending is an increasing proportion of government expenditures in most Western countries. How this growth is distributed between individuals with minimal compared to high health care utilization is unknown. METHODS: We examined total and per-capita government expenditure in an observational cohort of fee-for-service U.S. Medicare enrollees aged ≥65 years from 2007 to 2018. We categorized patients into annual resource utilization strata. We examined annualized changes in adjusted spending across resource utilization strata and the distribution of spending within and across strata for a variety of health care settings. FINDINGS: Examining 314,593,489 beneficiary-years of coverage, the top 1% of beneficiaries accounted for 14.9% of all expenditures, the top 5% for 41.5%, the top 10% for 60.0%, the top 20% for 79.1%, and the top 50% for 95.7%. Annual expenditures remained relatively stable from 2007 to 2018, with annual mean change of 0.7% (standard deviation 1.1%; median 1.1%) and mean per capita change of 0.4% (standard deviation 1·6%; median 0·3%). Changes were similar across strata with mean increases <1% in all, save for the <50th percentile strata (mean annual growth=1·9%), a significant difference (p = 0.0002). The overall distribution of expenditures across health care settings remained consistent over time, with different distributions between expenditure strata. INTERPRETATION: In the U.S. from 2007 to 2018, Medicare spending has a Pareto distribution in which 80% of the costs are attributable to 20% of beneficiaries. Despite low overall Medicare spending growth from 2007 to 2018, growth has been greatest among those in the lowest spending group. FUNDING: The Commonwealth Fund (20,202,411).

How The ACA Dented The Cost Curve.

Numerous provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) were designed to make health care more affordable, yet the act's cumulative effects on health care costs are still debated. A key question is whether or not the ACA reduced the annual rate at which total national health care spending increased and brought per capita spending growth rates down. We review the direct and indirect effects of the ACA on spending across segments of the health insurance market. We highlight areas where the ACA has affected spending, but we emphasize that the ACA's long-run impact on spending will depend on sustaining the adjustments made to provider payment systems and expanding the emphasis on value across payers throughout the ACA's second decade and beyond.

Forecasting the use of electronic health records: an expert opinion approach.

BACKGROUND: To promote the widespread adoption and use of electronic health records (EHRs), in 2011, CMS started making Medicare and Medicaid incentive payments to providers who demonstrate that they are "meaningful users" of certified EHR systems. DATA AND METHODS: This paper combines an expert opinion method, a modified Delphi technique, with a technological diffusion framework to create a forecast of the percent of office-based physicians who will become adopters and "meaningful users" of health information technology from 2012 to 2019. The panel consisted of 18 experts from industry, academia, and government who are knowledgeable about the adoption and use of EHRs in office-based settings and are recognized as opinion leaders in their respective professions. RESULTS: Overall, the expert panel projected that primary care physicians in large group practices are more likely to achieve the meaningful use of EHRS relative to primary care physicians in small group practices and all other specialists: the group projected that 65 percent of primary care physicians in large group practices, 45 percent of primary care physicians in small group practices, and 44 percent of all other specialists could achieve meaningful use by 2015. In 2019, these projections increase to 80 percent, 65 percent, and 66 percent for these three groups, respectively. CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS: The information from this study is especially valuable when there is a lack of data and a high degree of uncertainty in a new policy environment and could help inform and evaluate government programs, such as the Regional Extension Centers (REC), by providing data from leading experts.

The benefits of health information technology: a review of the recent literature shows predominantly positive results.

An unprecedented federal effort is under way to boost the adoption of electronic health records and spur innovation in health care delivery. We reviewed the recent literature on health information technology to determine its effect on outcomes, including quality, efficiency, and provider satisfaction. We found that 92 percent of the recent articles on health information technology reached conclusions that were positive overall. We also found that the benefits of the technology are beginning to emerge in smaller practices and organizations, as well as in large organizations that were early adopters. However, dissatisfaction with electronic health records among some providers remains a problem and a barrier to achieving the potential of health information technology. These realities highlight the need for studies that document the challenging aspects of implementing health information technology more specifically and how these challenges might be addressed.

More than four in five office-based physicians could qualify for federal electronic health record incentives.

Our analyses of federal survey data show that more than four in five office-based physicians could qualify for new federal incentive payments to encourage the adoption and "meaningful use" of electronic health records, based on the numbers of Medicare or Medicaid patients they see. The incentives are thus likely to accelerate the spread of electronic health records. However, our analyses also indicate that eligibility for the incentives is likely to vary by specialty: 90.6 percent of physicians working in general or family practice or internal medicine could qualify for incentives, but fewer than two-thirds of pediatricians, obstetrician-gynecologists, and psychiatrists may qualify. Eligibility and use will also vary by factors such as size and type of practice; physicians in solo practice are much less likely to use electronic health records than physicians in other practice settings. We suggest actions that policy makers can take to lessen disparities and increase the adoption and meaningful use of electronic health records.

Effects of competition on the cost and quality of inpatient rehabilitation care under prospective payment.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of competition in postacute care (PAC) markets on resource intensity and outcomes of care in inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) after prospective payment was implemented. DATA SOURCES: Medicare claims, Provider of Services file, Enrollment file, Area Resource file, Minimum Data Set. STUDY DESIGN: We created an exogenous measure of competition based on patient travel distances and used instrumental variables models to estimate the effect of competition on inpatient rehabilitation costs, length of stay, and death or institutionalization. DATA EXTRACTION METHODS: A file was constructed linking data for Medicare patients discharged from acute care between 2002 and 2003 and admitted to an IRF with a diagnosis of hip fracture or stroke. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Competition had different effects on treatment intensity and outcomes for hip fracture and stroke patients. In the treatment of hip fracture, competition increased costs and length of stay, while increasing rates of death or institutionalization. In the treatment of stroke, competition decreased costs and length of stay and produced inferior outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: The effects of competition in PAC markets may vary by condition. It is important to study the effects of competition by diagnostic condition and to study the effects across populations that vary in severity. Our finding that higher competition under prospective payment led to worse IRF outcomes raises concerns and calls for additional research.

Beacon communities aim to use health information technology to transform the delivery of care.

The Beacon Community Program, authorized under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), aims to demonstrate the potential for health information technology to enable local improvements in health care quality, cost efficiency, and population health. If successful, these communitywide efforts will yield important lessons that will assist other communities seeking to harness technology to achieve and sustain health care improvements. This paper highlights key programmatic details that reflect the meaningful use of technology in the fifteen Beacon communities. It describes the innovations they propose and provides insight into current and future challenges.

Medicare spending and outcomes after postacute care for stroke and hip fracture.

BACKGROUND: Elderly patients who leave an acute care hospital after a stroke or a hip fracture may be discharged home, or undergo postacute rehabilitative care in an inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) or skilled nursing facility (SNF). Because 15% of Medicare expenditures are for these types of postacute care, it is important to understand their relative costs and the health outcomes they produce. OBJECTIVE: To assess Medicare payments for and outcomes of patients discharged from acute care to an IRF, a SNF, or home after an inpatient diagnosis of stroke or hip fracture between January 2002 and June 2003. RESEARCH DESIGN: This is an observational study based on Medicare administrative data. We adjust for observable differences in patient severity across postacute care sites, and we use instrumental variables estimation to account for unobserved patient selection. STUDY OUTCOMES: Mortality, return to community residence, and total Medicare postacute payments by 120 days after acute care discharge. RESULTS: Relative to discharge home, IRFs improve health outcomes for hip fracture patients. SNFs reduce mortality for hip fracture patients, but increase rates of institutionalization for stroke patients. Both sites of care are far more expensive than discharge to home. CONCLUSIONS: When there is a choice between IRF and SNF care for stroke and hip fracture patients, the marginal patient is better off going to an IRF for postacute care. However, given the marginal cost of an IRF stay compared with returning home, the gains to these patients should be considered in light of the additional costs.

Health information technology: laying the infrastructure for national health reform.

The enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a signal achievement on the road to reform, which arguably began with the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. That statute's Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) provisions created an essential foundation for restructuring health care delivery and for achieving the key goals of improving health care quality; reducing costs; and increasing access through better methods of storing, analyzing, and sharing health information. This article discusses the range of initiatives under HITECH to support health reform, including proposed regulations on "meaningful use" and standards; funding of regional extension centers and Beacon communities; and support for the development and use of clinical registries and linked health outcomes research networks, all of which are critical to carrying out the comparative clinical effectiveness research that will be expanded under health reform.

The Medicare hospice payment system: a consideration of potential refinements.

The purpose of this article is to examine variation in resource utilization across and within patient stays in the context of Medicare's per diem payment system for hospice. Visit-level resource utilization data were linked to patient-level diagnosis and demographics covering more than 68,000 Medicare patients admitted in 2002 and 2003. Our findings suggest that case mix adjustment based on diagnosis and demographics does not improve our ability to explain variation in resource utilization across stays. However, we do find that there is substantial variation in resource utilization within stays that may not be captured in the current per diem payment system.

Effects of payment changes on trends in post-acute care.

OBJECTIVE: To test how the implementation of new Medicare post-acute payment systems affected the use of inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs), skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), and home health agencies. DATA SOURCES: Medicare acute hospital, IRF, and SNF claims; provider of services file; enrollment file; and Area Resource File data. STUDY DESIGN: We used multinomial logit models to measure realized access to post-acute care and to predict how access to alternative sites of care changed in response to prospective payment systems. DATA EXTRACTION METHODS: A file was constructed linking data for elderly Medicare patients discharged from acute care facilities between 1996 and 2003 with a diagnosis of hip fracture, stroke, or lower extremity joint replacement. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Although the effects of the payment systems on the use of post-acute care varied, most reduced the use of the site of care they directly affected and boosted the use of alternative sites of care. Payment system changes do not appear to have differentially affected the severely ill. CONCLUSIONS: Payment system incentives play a significant role in determining where Medicare beneficiaries receive their post-acute care. Changing these incentives results in shifting of patients between post-acute sites.

Who gets disease management?

BACKGROUND: Disease management (DM) has been promoted to improve health outcomes and lower costs for patients with chronic disease. Unfortunately, most of the studies that support claims of DM's success suffer from a number of biases, the most important of which is selection bias, or bias in the type of patients enrolling. OBJECTIVE: To quantify the differences between those who do and do not enroll in DM. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This was an observational study of the health care use, costs, and quality of care of 27,211 members of a large health insurer who were identified through claims as having asthma, diabetes, or congestive heart failure, were considered to be at high risk for incurring significant claims costs, and were eligible to join a disease management program involving health coaching. MEASUREMENTS: We used health coach call records to determine which patients participated in at least one coaching call and which refused to participate. We used claims data for the 12 months before the start of intervention to tabulate costs and utilization metrics. In addition, we calculated HEDIS quality scores for the year prior to the start of intervention. RESULTS: The patients who enrolled in the DM program differed significantly from those who did not on demographic, cost, utilization and quality parameters prior to enrollment. For example, compared to non-enrollees, diabetes enrollees had nine more prescriptions per year and higher HbA1c HEDIS scores (0.70 vs. 0.61, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: These findings illuminate the serious problem of selection into DM programs and suggest that the effectiveness levels found in prior evaluations using methodologies that don't address this may be overstated.

Use of postacute care by nursing home residents hospitalized for stroke or hip fracture: how prevalent and to what end?

OBJECTIVES: To examine nursing home (NH) residents' use of Medicare-paid skilled nursing facility (SNF) services and the outcomes of that care and to identify clinical and non-clinical factors associated with that care. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort. SETTING: United States. PARTICIPANTS: NH residents aged 65 and older with Medicare claims for a hospitalization for hip fracture or stroke during 2001 to 2003. MEASUREMENTS: Resident diagnoses and use of SNF postacute care were measured using Medicare hospital claims. Market and provider characteristics were drawn from the Provider of Services file. Baseline characteristics, institutionalization, and mortality outcomes were drawn from the Minimum Data Set and Medicare Denominator File. RESULTS: Of the NH population hospitalized for hip fracture (49,903) or stroke (23,084), 79.7% and 64.1%, respectively, used the SNF benefit. Residents not using the SNF benefit had poorer baseline health status; their mortality rates and rates of resuming long-term care were similar to the rates of residents who used the SNF benefit. CONCLUSION: NH residents used postacute SNF benefits at high rates yet had similar mortality and institutionalization outcomes as those without SNF care.

Does how much and how you pay matter? Evidence from the inpatient rehabilitation care prospective payment system.

We use the implementation of a new prospective payment system (PPS) for inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) to investigate the effect of changes in marginal and average reimbursement on costs. The results show that the IRF PPS led to a significant decline in costs and length of stay. Changes in marginal reimbursement associated with the move from a cost-based system to a PPS led to a 7-11% reduction in costs. The elasticity of costs with respect to average reimbursement ranged from 0.26 to 0.34. Finally, the IRF PPS had little or no impact on mortality or the rate of return to community residence.

The role of product design in consumers' choices in the individual insurance market.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the role of health plan benefit design and price on consumers' decisions to purchase health insurance in the nongroup market and their choice of plan. DATA SOURCES AND STUDY SETTING: Administrative data from the three largest nongroup insurers in California and survey data about those insured in the nongroup market and the uninsured in California. STUDY DESIGN: We fit a nested logit model to examine the effects of plan characteristics on consumer choice while accounting for substitutability among certain groups of products. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Product choice is quite sensitive to price. A 10 percent decrease in the price of a product would increase its market share by about 20 percent. However, a 10 percent decrease in prices of all products would only increase overall market participation by about 4 percent. Changes in the generosity of coverage will also affect product choice, but have only small effects on overall participation. A 20 percent decrease in the deductible or maximum out-of-pocket payment of all plans would increase participation by about 0.3-0.5 percent. Perceived information search costs and other nonprice barriers have substantial effects on purchase of nongroup coverage. CONCLUSIONS: Modest subsidies will have small effects on purchase in the nongroup market. New product designs with higher deductibles are likely to be more attractive to healthy purchasers, but the new benefit designs are likely to have only small effects on market participation. In contrast, consumer education efforts have a role to play in helping to expand coverage.

Access to postacute rehabilitation.

Each year, more than 10 million Medicare beneficiaries are discharged from acute care hospitals into postacute care (PAC) settings, including inpatient rehabilitation facilities, skilled nursing facilities, and homes with services from home health agencies. These beneficiaries include very frail and vulnerable elders, many of whom have suffered from an acute event such as a stroke or a fall resulting in hip fracture, all of whom are judged unable to return to their homes without further care. Whether beneficiaries receive PAC and the type and intensity of care they receive is influenced not only by clinical factors, but by nonclinical factors including provider supply and financing, especially Medicare's methods of payment. This article provides a definition of PAC and discusses the wide cross-sectional variation in the use of postacute rehabilitation. It then discusses recent changes to PAC provider payment that have raised concerns about access to postacute rehabilitation, trends in the use of PAC, and what these trends imply about the appropriateness of PAC as it is now delivered. It concludes by identifying issues about the policy and research implications of recent developments and the PAC literature reviewed.

Did the Medicare inpatient rehabilitation facility prospective payment system result in changes in relative patient severity and relative resource use?

BACKGROUND: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services implemented a prospective payment system (PPS) in 2002 for care provided by inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) to Medicare beneficiaries. OBJECTIVE: We sought to examine changes in the composition of Medicare beneficiaries in IRFs by examining the percentages of patients having worse functional or health status than the average for their payment groups (relative severity) and of patients having greater cost or longer length of stay than the average for their payment groups (relative resource use) before versus after IRF PPS; to examine whether observed changes in relative resource use were expected given predicted changes; and to explore whether these effects varied by IRF Medicare volume. METHODS: In an observational study of indicators of Medicare beneficiary relative severity and relative resource use, we studied cases paid for by Medicare during 1999 and 2002 having an acute care stay preceding their IRF stay (n = 363,542 in 1999 and 446,002 in 2002). RESULTS: Similar percentages of cases had longer than expected lengths of stay, greater-than-expected costs per case, and worse-than-expected functional status pre- versus post-IRF PPS. Cases under the IRF PPS had lower predicted probabilities of death 150 days after admission. Although predicted relative resource use remained steady, observed relative resource use decreased after IRF PPS. CONCLUSIONS: IRF patient composition has not changed meaningfully for Medicare beneficiaries, but patients within payment groups are being provided less care, which could be attributable to the IRF PPS, existing trends in decreasing length of stay, or both.