Impact of Health Insurance Patterns on Chronic Health Conditions Among Older Patients.

BACKGROUND: Patients have varying levels of chronic conditions and health insurance patterns as they become Medicare age-eligible. Understanding these dynamics will inform policies and reforms that direct capacity and resources for primary care clinics to care for these aging patients. This study 1) determined changes in chronic condition rates following Medicare age eligibility among patients with different insurance patterns and 2) estimated the number of chronically ill patients who remain inadequately insured post-Medicare eligibility among patients receiving care in community health centers. METHOD: We used retrospective electronic health record data from 45,527 patients aged 62 to 68 from 990 community health centers in 25 states in 2014 to 2019. Insurance patterns (continuously insured, continuously uninsured, uninsured/discontinuously insured who gained insurance after age 65, lost insurance after age 65, discontinuously insured) and diagnosis of chronic conditions were defined at each visit pre- and post-Medicare eligibility. Difference-in-differences Poisson GEE models estimated changes of chronic condition rates by insurance groups pre- to post-Medicare age eligibility. RESULTS: Post-Medicare eligibility, 72% patients were continuously insured, 14% gained insurance; and 14% were uninsured or discontinuously insured. The prevalence of multimorbidity (≥2 chronic conditions) was 77%. Those who gained insurance had a significantly larger increase in the rate of documented chronic conditions from pre- to post-Medicare (DID: 1.06, 95%CI:1.05-1.07) compared with the continuously insured group. CONCLUSIONS: Post-Medicare age eligibility, a significant proportion of patients were diagnosed with new conditions leading to high burden of disease. One in 4 older adults continue to have inadequate health care coverage in their older age.

Preparing for pragmatic trials in dementia care: Health equity considerations for nonpharmacological interventions.

Inequities with regard to brain health, economic costs, and the evidence base for dementia care continue. Achieving health equity in dementia care requires rigorous efforts that ensure disproportionately affected populations participate fully in-and benefit from-clinical research. Embedding-proven interventions under real-world conditions and within existing healthcare systems have the potential to examine the effectiveness of an intervention, improve dementia care, and leverage the use of existing resources. Developing embedded pragmatic controlled trials (ePCT) research designs for nonpharmacological dementia care interventions involves a plethora of a priori assumptions and decisions. Although frameworks exist to determine whether interventions are "ready" for ePCT, there is no heuristic to assess health equity-readiness. We discuss health equity considerations, case examples, and research strategies across ePCT study domains of evidence, risk, and alignment. Future discussions regarding health equity considerations across other domains are needed.

Health equity considerations in pragmatic trials in Alzheimer's and dementia disease: Results from a methodological review.

Introduction: To improve dementia care delivery for persons across all backgrounds, it is imperative that health equity is integrated into pragmatic trials. Methods: We reviewed 62 pragmatic trials of people with dementia published 2014 to 2019. We assessed health equity in the objectives; design, conduct, analysis; and reporting using PROGRESS-Plus which stands for Place of residence, Race/ethnicity, Occupation, Gender/sex, Religion, Education, Socioeconomic status, Social capital, and other factors such as age and disability. Results: Two (3.2%) trials incorporated equity considerations into their objectives; nine (14.5%) engaged with communities; 4 (6.5%) described steps to increase enrollment from equity-relevant groups. Almost all trials (59, 95.2%) assessed baseline balance for at least one PROGRESS-Plus characteristic, but only 10 (16.1%) presented subgroup analyses across such characteristics. Differential recruitment, attrition, implementation, adherence, and applicability across PROGRESS-Plus were seldom discussed. Discussion: Ongoing and future pragmatic trials should more rigorously integrate equity considerations in their design, conduct, and reporting. Highlights: Few pragmatic trials are explicitly designed to inform equity-relevant objectives.Few pragmatic trials take steps to increase enrollment from equity-relevant groups.Disaggregated results across equity-relevant groups are seldom reported.Adherence to existing tools (e.g., IMPACT Best Practices, CONSORT-Equity) is key.

Best Practice Recommendations for Integrating Health Equity into Pragmatic Clinical Trials for Dementia Care.

Context: Minoritized populations experience higher rates of dementia and worse health outcomes than non-Hispanic white people, but they are vastly underrepresented in pragmatic clinical trials embedded in health care systems (ePCTs). Little guidance is available to consider health equity-relevant issues in ePCTs. Objective: This report describes the development, structure, and content of a guidance document developed by the National Institute on Aging Imbedded Pragmatic AD/ADRD Clinical Trials (IMPACT) Collaboratory to help investigators systematically assess the integration of health equity into all aspects of ePCT design. Design: Led by a task force of IMPACT investigators, a literature review of existing frameworks for health equity considerations in clinical trials was conducted. Next, priority health equity-relevant recommendations in the domains of ePCT design were solicited from Collaboratory experts. The 50 submitted recommendations were reduced to 36 nonoverlapping best practices and categorized into 6 domains, as follows: Getting Started, Community Stakeholder Engagement, Design and Analysis, Intervention Design and Implementation, Health Care System and Participant Selection, and Selecting Outcomes. Each domain had 6 best practice recommendations consisting of a succinctly worded main sentence, with 1 to 2 explanatory sentences. The content was finalized through an iterative process of editing and revision. Conclusions: Although specifically focused on ePCTs involving dementia care, the best practices are applicable to any ePCT and can be useful to advance health equity in traditional clinical trials. This guidance document provides a first step toward promoting holistic, structured integration of health equity into the design and conduct of ePCTs as a matter of good science.

The Contribution of Chronic Conditions to Hospitalization, Skilled Nursing Facility Admission, and Death: Variation by Race.

Multimorbidity (≥2 chronic conditions) is a common and important marker of aging. To better understand racial differences in multimorbidity burden and associations with important health-related outcomes, we assessed differences in the contribution of chronic conditions to hospitalization, skilled nursing facility admission, and mortality among non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White older adults in the United States. We used data from a nationally representative study, the National Health and Aging Trends Study, linked to Medicare claims from 2011-2015 (n = 4,871 respondents). This analysis improved upon prior research by identifying the absolute contributions of chronic conditions using a longitudinal extension of the average attributable fraction for Black and White Medicare beneficiaries. We found that cardiovascular conditions were the greatest contributors to outcomes among White respondents, while the greatest contributor to outcomes for Black respondents was renal morbidity. This study provides important insights into racial differences in the contributions of chronic conditions to costly health-care utilization and mortality, and it prompts policy-makers to champion delivery reforms that will expand access to preventive and ongoing care for diverse Medicare beneficiaries.