Implementation and Evaluation of a Breast Cancer Disease Model Using Real-World Claims Data in Germany from 2010 to 2020.

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality among women in Germany and worldwide. This retrospective claims data analysis utilizing data from AOK Baden-Wuerttemberg, a major statutory German health insurance provider, aimed to construct and assess a real-world data breast cancer disease model. The study included 27,869 female breast cancer patients and 55,738 age-matched controls, analyzing data from 2010 to 2020. Three distinct breast cancer stages were analyzed: Stage A (early breast cancer without lymph node involvement), Stage B (early breast cancer with lymph node involvement), and Stage C (primary distant metastatic breast cancer). Tumor subtypes were estimated based on the prescription of antihormonal or HER2-targeted therapy. The study established that 77.9% of patients had HR+ breast cancer and 9.8% HER2+; HR+/HER2- was the most common subtype (70.9%). Overall survival (OS) analysis demonstrated significantly lower survival rates for stages B and C than for controls, with 5-year OS rates ranging from 79.3% for stage B to 35.4% for stage C. OS rates were further stratified by tumor subtype and stage, revealing varying prognoses. Distant recurrence-free survival (DRFS) analysis showed higher recurrence rates in stage B than in stage A, with HR-/HER2- displaying the worst DRFS. This study, the first to model breast cancer subtypes, stages, and outcomes using German claims data, provides valuable insights into real-world breast cancer epidemiology and demonstrates that this breast cancer disease model has the potential to be representative of treatment outcomes.

Long-term effects of preeclampsia on maternal cardiovascular health and postpartum utilization of primary care: an observational claims data study.

PURPOSE: Preeclampsia occurs in up to 15% of pregnancies and constitutes a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. This observational cohort study aimed to examine the association between preeclamptic pregnancies and cardiovascular outcomes as well as primary and specialized care utilization after delivery. METHODS: Using statutory claims data we identified women with singleton live births between 2010 and 2017. Main outcomes included the occurrence of either hypertension or cardiovascular disease after one or more preeclamptic pregnancies, number of contacts to a general practitioner or cardiologist after delivery and prescribed antihypertensive medication. Data were analyzed using Cox proportional hazard regression models adjusted for maternal age, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and obesity. RESULTS: The study cohort consisted of 181,574 women with 240,698 births. Women who experienced preeclampsia once had an increased risk for cardiovascular (hazard ratio, HR = 1.29) or hypertensive (HR = 4.13) events. In women affected by recurrent preeclampsia, risks were even higher to develop cardiovascular disease (HR = 1.53) or hypertension (HR = 6.01). In the following years after delivery, general practitioners were seen frequently, whereas cardiologists were consulted rarely (0.3 and 2.4%). CONCLUSION: Women affected by preeclampsia experience an increased risk of developing chronic hypertension and cardiovascular disease, especially those with recurrent preeclampsia. Future medical guidelines should take this potential risk into account.

Comorbidity, life-style factors and healthcare utilization in incident chronic kidney disease: sex-specific analyses of claims data.

BACKGROUND: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is common in aging men and women. In contrast to other European countries, Germany lacks CKD registries. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of CKD stages 2-5 in men and women in Germany. Furthermore, differences between the sexes in terms of comorbidities, potentially inappropriate medications (PIM), and healthcare utilization were examined. METHODS: In this retrospective observational study, claims data from members of a statutory health insurance fund aged 18 years or older with incident CKD between 2011 and 2018 were analyzed. Incident CKD was defined as having two confirmed diagnoses of CKD stages 2-5 from outpatient care or one primary or secondary diagnosis from inpatient care. RESULTS: The age- and sex-standardized incidence of all CKD stages was 945/100 000 persons between 2011 and 2018. Incident CKD, especially stages 3 and 4, occurred more frequently in women, while the incidence of stages 2 and 5 was higher in men. While women visited their GP more frequently and were prescribed PIMs more often, men were more likely to visit a nephrologist and were more often hospitalized after the incident CKD diagnosis. CONCLUSION: More awareness needs to be raised towards the early detection of CKD and the use of PIMs, especially in women. Improved care coordination is needed to avoid an overprovision of patients with uncomplicated incident stages and ensure that patients with advanced CKD stages get timely access to specialist care.

Observational database study on preeclampsia and postpartum medical care up to 7.5 years after birth.

Preeclampsia is associated with a substantially increased long-term risk for cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and renal disease. It remains unclear whether and to which extent specialized medical postpartum care is sought. We aimed to assess current utilization of postpartum primary and specialized care and medication prescription behavior in women who experienced preeclampsia. This retrospective observational study based on statutory claims data included 193,205 women with 258,344 singleton live births between 2010 and 2017 in Southern Germany. Postpartum care was evaluated by analyzing and comparing the frequency of medical consultations in primary and specialized care and prescriptions for antihypertensive medication among women with and without preeclampsia up to 7.5 years after delivery. Gynecologists and general practitioners were the main health care providers for all women. Although specialized postpartum care was sought by more women after preeclampsia, the effect size indices revealed no considerable association between a history of preeclampsia and the utilization of specialized outpatient aftercare (e.g. 2% vs. 0.6% of patients with and without preeclampsia who consulted a nephrologist during the first year postpartum, r = 0.042). Preeclampsia was associated with an increased risk to take any antihypertensive medication after delivery (HR 2.7 [2.6; 2.8]). Postpartum referral to specialized outpatient care and quarterly prescriptions of antihypertensives following preeclampsia failed to match the early and rapidly increased incidence and risk of hypertension. These data highlight the missed opportunity to implement a reasonable follow-up strategy and prevention management in order to achieve long-term clinical benefits.

An observational claims data analysis on the risk of maternal chronic kidney disease after preterm delivery and preeclampsia.

Women with complications of pregnancy such as preeclampsia and preterm birth are at risk for adverse long-term outcomes, including an increased future risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). This observational cohort study aimed to examine the risk of CKD after preterm delivery and preeclampsia in a large obstetric cohort in Germany, taking into account preexisting comorbidities, potential confounders, and the severity of CKD. Statutory claims data of the AOK Baden-Wuerttemberg were used to identify women with singleton live births between 2010 and 2017. Women with preexisting conditions including CKD, ESKD, and kidney replacement therapy (KRT) were excluded. Preterm delivery (< 37 gestational weeks) was the main exposure of interest; preeclampsia was investigated as secondary exposure. The main outcome was a newly recorded diagnosis of CKD in the claims database. Data were analyzed using Cox proportional hazard regression models. The time-dependent occurrence of CKD was analyzed for four strata, i.e., births with (i) neither an exposure of preterm delivery nor an exposure of preeclampsia, (ii) no exposure of preterm delivery but exposure of at least one preeclampsia, (iii) an exposure of at least one preterm delivery but no exposure of preeclampsia, or (iv) joint exposure of preterm delivery and preeclampsia. Risk stratification also included different CKD stages. Adjustments were made for confounding factors, such as maternal age, diabetes, obesity, and dyslipidemia. The cohort consisted of 193,152 women with 257,481 singleton live births. Mean observation time was 5.44 years. In total, there were 16,948 preterm deliveries (6.58%) and 14,448 births with at least one prior diagnosis of preeclampsia (5.61%). With a mean age of 30.51 years, 1,821 women developed any form of CKD. Compared to women with no risk exposure, women with a history of at least one preterm delivery (HR = 1.789) and women with a history of at least one preeclampsia (HR = 1.784) had an increased risk for any subsequent CKD. The highest risk for CKD was found for women with a joint exposure of preterm delivery and preeclampsia (HR = 5.227). These effects were the same in magnitude only for the outcome of mild to moderate CKD, but strongly increased for the outcome of severe CKD (HR = 11.90). Preterm delivery and preeclampsia were identified as independent risk factors for all CKD stages. A joint exposure or preterm birth and preeclampsia was associated with an excessive maternal risk burden for CKD in the first decade after pregnancy. Since consequent follow-up policies have not been defined yet, these results will help guide long-term surveillance for early detection and prevention of kidney disease, especially for women affected by both conditions.

Depression treatment in Germany - using claims data to compare a collaborative mental health care program to the general practitioner program and usual care in terms of guideline adherence and need-oriented access to psychotherapy.

BACKGROUND: Societies strive for fast-delivered, evidence-based and need-oriented depression treatment within budget constraints. To explore potential improvements, selective contracts can be implemented. Here, we evaluate if the German collaborative psychiatry-neurology-psychotherapy contract (PNP), which extends the gatekeeping-based general practitioner (GP) program, improved guideline adherence or need-oriented and timely access to psychotherapy compared to usual care (UC). METHODS: We conducted a retrospective observational cohort study based on health insurance claims data. After we identified patients with depression who were on sick leave due to a mental disorder in 2015, we applied entropy balancing to adjust for selection effects and employed chi-squared tests to compare guideline adherence of the received treatment between PNP, the GP program and UC. Subsequently, we applied an extended cox regression to assess need-orientation by comparing the relationship between accumulated sick leave days and waiting times for psychotherapy across health plans. RESULTS: N = 23,245 patients were included. Regarding guideline adherence, we found no significant differences for most severity subgroups; except that patients with a first moderate depressive episode received antidepressants or psychotherapy more often in UC. Regarding need-orientation, we observed that the effect of each additional month of sick leave on the likelihood of starting psychotherapy was increased by 6% in PNP compared to UC. Irrespective of the health plan, we found that within the first 12 months only between 24.3 and 39.7% (depending on depression severity) received at least 10 psychotherapy sessions or adequate pharmacotherapy. CONCLUSIONS: The PNP contract strengthens the relationship between sick leave days and the delay until the beginning of psychotherapy, which suggests improvements in terms of need-oriented access to care. However, we found no indication for increased guideline adherence and - independent of the health plan - a gap in sufficient utilization of adequate treatment options.

How does the integration of collaborative care elements in a gatekeeping system affect the costs for mental health care in Germany?

Mental disorders are widespread, debilitating and associated with high costs. In Germany, usual care (UC) for mental disorders is afflicted by poor coordination between providers and long waiting times. Recently, the primary alternative to UC-the gatekeeping-based general practitioners (GP) program-was extended by the collaborative Psychiatry-Neurology-Psychotherapy (PNP) program, which is a selective contract designed to improve mental health care and the allocation of resources. Here, we assess the effects of the GP program and the PNP program on costs for mental health care. We analyzed claims data from 2014 to 2016 of 55,472 adults with a disorder addressed by PNP to compare costs and sick leave days between PNP, the GP program and UC. The individuals were grouped and balanced via entropy balancing to adjust for potentially confounding covariates. We employed a negative binomial model to compare sick leave days and two-part models to compare sick pay, outpatient, inpatient and medication costs over a 12-month period. The PNP program significantly reduced sick pay by 164€, compared to UC, and by 177€, compared to the GP program. Consistently, sick leave days were lower in PNP. We found lower inpatient costs in PNP than in UC (-194€) and in the GP program (-177€), but no reduction in those shares of inpatient costs that accrued in psychiatric or neurological departments. Our results suggest that integrating collaborative care elements in a gatekeeping system can favourably impact costs. In contrast, we found no evidence that the widely implemented GP program reduces costs for mental health care.

[PNP Program - Collaborative Mental and Neurological Health Care Program in Baden-Württemberg: Evaluation from the Perspective of Health Care Providers Enrolled in the Program]. / PNP-Vertrag ­ Facharztvertrag Psychotherapie, Neurologie, Psychiatrie in Baden-Württemberg: Evaluation aus der Sicht der teilnehmenden Behandlerinnen und Behandler.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate structure and process quality from the perspective of health care providers enrolled in the PNP program. This collaborative care program developed by a German statutory health insurance provides specific rules on psychiatric, neurological, psychosomatic, and psychotherapeutic treatment. It aims to improve the quality of health care by strengthening evidence-based outpatient care and collaboration between health care providers. METHODS: Based on qualitative interviews with n = 9 enrolled health care providers a questionnaire was developed and sent to all N = 720 enrolled health care providers. RESULTS: N = 430 health care providers (81 % psychotherapists, 2 % psychiatrists, 2 % neurologists, 15 % ≥ one profession) participated (60 %). 94 % were satisfied with the program. Problems with access, treatment and cooperation were reported. CONCLUSION: The positive evaluation and the potential for improvements of the PNP program can support its advancement (e. g. enrolment, billing).

[Patients Ability to Provide Information about Prescribed Drugs - a Cross-Sectional Study in Ten General Practice]. / Auskunftsfähigkeit von Patienten über ihre ärztlich verordneten Medikamente ­ Eine Querschnittstudie in zehn Allgemeinarztpraxen.

BACKGROUND: For the correct intake and safe handling of their own medication it is important that patients know about their own medication and can give certain information. This study examines what information patients can provide about their prescribed medication and which factors influence the ability to provide information. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted. In 10 General Practice, 637 patients (participation rate 57 %) were asked about the name, dosage, frequency of intake and indication of their prescribed medication. The patient information were compared with the practice documentation. RESULTS: Patient data on the number of medications were 54 % consistent with the practice documentation. There is a relevant discrepancy between the documented drug prescription and the information provided by patients. The patients were best able to provide information about the names (75 %) of their medications and worst about the indication (47 %). The ability to provide information decreased in patients with ≥ 5 medications. An association between higher education and correct information was found. 65 % of the participants had a medication plan and 19 % used the plan to answer the questions. The possession of a medication plan showed no effect. However the use of a medication plan had an effect, which was even stronger in patients with ≥ 5 medications. CONCLUSION: Most patients did not use the medication plan, which is why the issue of a medication plan does not lead to better information. Technical solutions, such as centralized data storage, should be developed, which can guarantee the security of supply and drug therapy and the exchange between different physicians and institutions, regardless of an incomplete and often non-existent paper or electronic health card medication plan.