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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

How much risk pooling is there in the individual insurance market?

OBJECTIVE: To examine how much pooling of risks occurs among potential purchasers in the individual market, how much pooling occurs among those who purchase coverage, and whether there is greater pooling among longer-term enrollees. DATA SOURCES: The data are administrative records for enrollees in individual insurance plans in California in 2001, and from a survey of Californians enrolled in the individual insurance market and the uninsured. STUDY DESIGN: Logit models were estimated for 5 health outcome measures to compare the insured and uninsured after adjusting for other factors that affect insurance status and health. Multivariate models were also estimated to explore the relationship between health and three measures of pooling in the market: plan type, pricing tier, and the actuarially adjusted premium paid by the enrollee. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Those who purchase individual health insurance are in better health than those who remain uninsured. On the other hand, a large share of people with health problems does obtain individual insurance. The distribution of subscribers across plan type and pricing tier varies with their health status. Those in poor health are less likely to purchase low benefit plans. There is less separation of risks for those who become sick after enrollment based on the measure of pricing tier. The distribution of subscribers across plan type for those who have health problems at enrollment and those who become sick differs, but so does the distribution of those who become sick and those who remain healthy. CONCLUSIONS: Despite small differences among the healthy and sick, our results support the conclusion that there is considerable risk pooling in the individual market. To some extent, this pooling occurs because underwriting happens at the time people enroll and there is greater pooling among those who become sick than those who enroll sick. Our results however suggest that health savings accounts may further fragment the market.

How much is postacute care use affected by its availability?

OBJECTIVE: To assess the relative impact of clinical factors versus nonclinical factors-such as postacute care (PAC) supply-in determining whether patients receive care from skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) or inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) after discharge from acute care. DATA SOURCES AND STUDY SETTING: Medicare acute hospital, IRF, and SNF claims provided data on PAC choices; predictors of site of PAC chosen were generated from Medicare claims, provider of services, enrollment file, and Area Resource File data. STUDY DESIGN: We used multinomial logit models to predict PAC use by elderly patients after hospitalizations for stroke, hip fractures, or lower extremity joint replacements. DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION METHODS: A file was constructed linking acute and postacute utilization data for all medicare patients hospitalized in 1999. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: PAC availability is a more powerful predictor of PAC use than the clinical characteristics in many of our models. The effects of distance to providers and supply of providers are particularly clear in the choice between IRF and SNF care. The farther away the nearest IRF is, and the closer the nearest SNF is, the less likely a patient is to go to an IRF. Similarly, the fewer IRFs, and the more SNFs, there are in the patient's area the less likely the patient is to go to an IRF. In addition, if the hospital from which the patient is discharged has a related IRF or a related SNF the patient is more likely to go there. CONCLUSIONS: We find that the availability of PAC is a major determinant of whether patients use such care and which type of PAC facility they use. Further research is needed in order to evaluate whether these findings indicate that a greater supply of PAC leads to both higher use of institutional care and better outcomes-or whether it leads to unwarranted expenditures of resources and delays in returning patients to their homes.

Using contingent choice methods to assess consumer preferences about health plan design.

INTRODUCTION: American insurers are designing products to contain health care costs by making consumers financially responsible for their choices. Little is known about how consumers will view these new designs. Our objective is to examine consumer preferences for selected benefit designs. METHODS: We used the contingent choice method to assess willingness to pay for six health plan attributes. Our sample included subscribers to individual health insurance products in California, US. We used fitted logistic regression models to explore how preferences for the more generous attributes varied with the additional premium and with the characteristics of the subscriber. RESULTS: High quality was the most highly valued attribute based on the amounts consumers report they are willing to pay. They were also willing to pay substantial monthly premiums to reduce their overall financial risk. Individuals in lower health were willing to pay more to reduce their financial risk than individuals in better health. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: Consumers may prefer tiered-benefit designs to those that involve overall increases in cost sharing. More consumer information is needed to help consumers better evaluate the costs and benefits of their insurance choices.

Is the individual market more than a bridge market? An analysis of disenrollment decisions.

The individual insurance market is perceived by many to provide primarily transition coverage, but there is limited research about how long people stay in this market and what affects their disenrollment decisions. We examine these issues using administrative records and survey data for those enrolled in the individual market in California. We conclude that there is less turnover in this market than is commonly believed. We find that economic factors and coverage characteristics are important in the decision to disenroll, but that perceptions about insurance and the health care system also affect this decision.

The role of the individual health insurance market and prospects for change.

The individual market is the only source of health insurance for the more than 20 percent of Americans not eligible for group or public health insurance; yet participation rates are low and shrinking. This paper examines this market's structural features and assesses the likelihood that it will play an expanded role in the future. We describe how pressures such as cost growth, new technologies, and changes in the nature of the workplace are shaping the individual market. We conclude that the future of the market will depend largely on whether there are policy interventions that balance the problems of affordability, risk sharing, and adverse selection.

Trends and variability in individual insurance products in California.

This paper examines recent trends in benefits and premiums for individual health insurance products purchased by Californians. There is much variability in the coverage available in the individual insurance market, with correspondingly wide variability in premiums. Despite concerns about increased consumer cost sharing, the average share of health spending covered by these products has remained constant between 1997 and 2002. Whether this trend can continue in the face of higher health costs is unclear.

Too much ado about two-part models and transformation? Comparing methods of modeling Medicare expenditures.

Many methods for modeling skewed health care cost and use data have been suggested in the literature. This paper compares the performance of eight alternative estimators, including OLS and GLM estimators and one- and two-part models, in predicting Medicare costs. It finds that four of the alternatives produce very similar results in practice. It then suggests an efficient method for researchers to use when selecting estimators of health care costs.

The costs of decedents in the Medicare program: implications for payments to Medicare + Choice plans.

OBJECTIVE: To discuss and quantify the incentives that Medicare managed care plans have to avoid (through selective enrollment or disenrollment) people who are at risk for very high costs, focusing on Medicare beneficiaries in the last year of life-a group that accounts for more than one-quarter of Medicare's annual expenditures. DATA SOURCE: Medicare administrative claims for 1994 and 1995. STUDY DESIGN: We calculated the payment a plan would have received under three risk-adjustment systems for each beneficiary in our 1995 sample based on his or her age, gender, county of residence, original reason for Medicare entitlement, and principal inpatient diagnoses received during any hospital stays in 1994. We compared these amounts to the actual costs incurred by those beneficiaries. We then looked for clinical categories that were predictive of costs, including costs in a beneficiary's last year of life, not accounted for by the risk adjusters. DATA EXTRACTION METHODS: The analyses were conducted using claims for a 5 percent random sample of Medicare beneficiaries who died in 1995 and a matched group of survivors. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Medicare is currently implementing the Principal Inpatient Diagnostic Cost Groups (PIP-DCG) risk adjustment payment system to address the problem of risk selection in the Medicare+Choice program. We quantify the strong financial disincentives to enroll terminally ill beneficiaries that plans still have under this risk adjustment system. We also show that up to one-third of the selection observed between Medicare HMOs and the traditional fee-for-service system could be due to differential enrollment of decedents. A risk adjustment system that incorporated more of the available diagnostic information would attenuate this disincentive; however, plans could still use clinical information (not included in the risk adjustment scheme) to identify beneficiaries whose expected costs exceed expected payments. CONCLUSIONS: More disaggregated prospective risk adjustment methods and alternative payment systems that compensate plans for delivering care to certain classes of patients should be considered to ensure access to high-quality managed care for all beneficiaries.

Identifying and accommodating statistical outliers when setting prospective payment rates for inpatient rehabilitation facilities.

OBJECTIVE: To demonstrate how a Bayesian outlier accommodation model identifies and accommodates statistical outlier hospitals when developing facility payment adjustments for Medicare's prospective payment system for inpatient rehabilitation care. DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING: Administrative data on costs and facility characteristics of inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) for calendar years 1998 and 1999. STUDY DESIGN: Compare standard linear regression and the Bayesian outlier accommodation model for developing facility payment adjustors for a prospective payment system. DATA COLLECTION: Variables describing facility average cost per case and facility characteristics were derived from several administrative data sources. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Evidence was found of non-normality of regression errors in the data used to develop facility payment adjustments for the inpatient rehabilitation facilities prospective payment system (IRF PPS). The Bayesian outlier accommodation model is shown to be appropriate for these data, but the model is largely consistent with the standard linear regression used in the development of the IRF PPS payment adjustors. CONCLUSIONS: The Bayesian outlier accommodation model is more robust to statistical outlier IRFs than standard linear regression for developing facility payment adjustments. It also allows for easy interpretation of model parameters, making it a viable policy alternative to standard regression in setting payment rates.

Subsidies and the demand for individual health insurance in California.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the effect of changes in premiums for individual insurance on decisions to purchase individual insurance and how this price response varies among subgroups of the population. DATA SOURCE: Survey responses from the Current Population Survey (http://www.bls.census.gov/cps/cpsmain.htm), the Survey of Income and Program Participation (http://www.sipp.census.gov/sipp), the National Health Interview Survey (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis.htm), and data about premiums and plans offered in the individual insurance market in California, 1996-2001. STUDY DESIGN: A logit model was used to estimate the decisions to purchase individual insurance by families without access to group insurance. This was modeled as a function of premiums, controlling for family characteristics and other characteristics of the market. A multinomial model was used to estimate the choice between group coverage, individual coverage, and remaining uninsured for workers offered group coverage as a function of premiums for individual insurance and out-of-pocket costs of group coverage. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The elasticity of demand for individual insurance by those without access to group insurance is about -.2 to -.4, as has been found in earlier studies. However, there are substantial differences in price responses among subgroups with low-income, young, and self-employed families showing the greatest response. Among workers offered group insurance, a decrease in individual premiums has very small effects on the choice to purchase individual coverage versus group coverage. CONCLUSIONS: Subsidy programs may make insurance more affordable for some families, but even sizeable subsidies are unlikely to solve the problem of the uninsured. We do not find evidence that subsidies to individual insurance will produce an unraveling of the employer-based health insurance system.