Medicare's Specialty-Oriented Accountable Care Organization: First-Year Results For People With End-Stage Renal Disease.

The Comprehensive End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Care (CEC) Model was the first Medicare specialty-oriented accountable care organization (ACO) model. We examined whether this model provided better results for beneficiaries with ESRD than primary care-based ACO models. We found significant decreases in Medicare payments ($126 per beneficiary per month), hospitalizations (5 percent), and likelihood of readmissions (8 percent) among beneficiaries with ESRD during the first year of alignment with the CEC Model and no impacts on these measures among beneficiaries with ESRD who were aligned with primary care-based ACOs, relative to fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries. Neither the CEC nor primary care-based ACO models significantly reduced the likelihood of catheter use, but fistula use increased for CEC Model beneficiaries to levels just above statistical significance. Other populations with chronic conditions may benefit from the testing of a specialty-oriented ACO model. In addition, primary care-based ACOs may benefit from applying CEC Model strategies to high-need subpopulations. Last, the strategies that enabled ESRD Seamless Care Organizations to achieve reductions in hospitalizations and readmissions even without hospital participation as owners could inform physician-led ACOs' efforts to coordinate with hospitals in their areas.

Social jobs and the returns to drinking.

We uniquely show that the returns to drinking in social jobs exceed those in non-social jobs. The higher returns remain when controlling for worker personality, when including individual fixed effects and in a series of robustness exercises. This showing fits the hypothesis that drinking assists the formation of social capital, capital that has greater value in social jobs. We are also the first to show that drinking may proxy both general and specific social capital formation. Drinking during a previous employer and during a current employer have returns and each have higher returns in a current social job.

The Effect of Medical Marijuana on Sickness Absence.

Utilizing the Current Population Survey, the study identifies that absences due to sickness decline following the legalization of medical marijuana. The effect is stronger in states with 'lax' medical marijuana regulations, for full-time workers, and for middle-aged males, which is the group most likely to hold medical marijuana cards. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.