For Third Enrollment Period, Marketplaces Expand Decision Support Tools to Assist Consumers
In Health Affairs, Charlene Wong and colleagues go shopping on the most recent iteration of ACA marketplaces. They find added features to help consumers browse and pick a health plan, including total cost estimators and provider look-up tools. Marketplaces differ in how they estimate out-of-pocket costs and how they display plan choices, although most continue to present plans in premium order.
High Cost Sharing and Specialty Drug Initiation Under Medicare Part D: A Case Study in Patients With Newly Diagnosed Chronic Myeloid Leukemia
Does high cost sharing in Medicare Part D drug plans affect whether and how quickly patients initiate a recommended and life-extending drug treatment? In American Journal of Managed Care, LDI Senior Fellows Jalpa Doshi, Pengxiang Li and colleagues assess whether Medicare patients newly diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and subject to significant coinsurance, take longer to initiate tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) treatment than low-income (subsidized) Medicare patients subject to a nominal copayment.
Penn Researchers Win PAN/AJMC 'Best Paper' Award
Biologic therapy adherence, discontinuation, switching, and restarting among patients with psoriasis in the US Medicare population
Jalpa Doshi, Junko Takeshita, Lionel Pinto, Penxiang Li, Xinyan Yu, Preethi Rao, Hema N. Viswanathan, Joel M. Gelfand
In the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Jalpa Doshi and colleagues, including Penxiang Li and Preethi Rao, investigate real-world utilization patterns of biologic therapy in Medicare beneficiaries with psoriasis. Studies indicate low adherence to biologics among patients with psoriasis, yet little is known about the adherence level in the Medicare population. Using data from the Medicare Chronic Condition Data Warehouse Part A, B, and D files with 12-month follow-up after index prescription, Doshi and colleagues conducted a retrospective claims analysis on 2707...
Chart of the Day: Pre- and Post-ACA Margins
How 'Winner's Curse' Killed ACA Insurance CO-OPs
Nurse staffing and the work environment linked to readmissions among older adults following elective total hip and knee replacement
Karen Lasater, Matthew McHugh
In the International Journal for Quality in Health Care, Karen Lasater and Matthew McHugh examine the effect of nurse staffing and the work environment on 10- and 30-day unplanned readmissions for Medicare patients following elective total hip and knee replacement. The authors conducted a cross-sectional secondary data analysis using patient administrative data, nurse survey data, and hospital organizational data from acute care hospitals in California, Florida, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Nurse survey responses were aggregated to construct hospital measures of nurse staffing and...
Your Narrow Network Will Be ‘Basic’ But Will It Be Adequate?
Many physician and consumer groups cheered when the Obama administration proposed network adequacy standards for health insurance plans sold on state and federal marketplaces. They will be disappointed that many of these standards did not make it into the Final Rule published yesterday in the Federal Register.
The Potential and Unique Challenges of Pediatric Medicaid ACOs
Much of what we hear about Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) has to do with how well, or poorly, they’re serving the Medicare population. Medicare ACOs have received a great deal of attention, but less discussed is the application of this new health care delivery model to the Medicaid population.
Comparison of Site of Death, Health Care Utilization, and Hospital Expenditures for Patients Dying With Cancer in 7 Developed Countries
Justin Bekelman, Scott Halpern, Carl Rudolf Blankart, Julie Bynum, Joachim Cohen, Robert Fowler, Stein Kaasa, Lukas Kwietniewski, Hans Olav Melberg, Bregie Onwuteaka-Philipsen, Mariska Oosterveld-Vulg, Andrew Pring, Joans Schreyogg, Connie Ulrich...
In The Journal of the American Medical Association, Justin Bekelman and colleagues, including Scott Halpern, Connie Ulrich and Ezekiel Emanuel compare site of death, health care utilization and hospital expenditures in 7 countries: Belgium, Canada, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the United States. Using administrative and registry data, the researchers measured deaths in acute care hospital, along with inpatient and outpatient measures, and hospital expenditures paid by insurers. They find that a smaller proportion of decedents, older than 65, died in acute...
Bernie Sanders’ Medicare For All Plan
[cross-posted from the Health Cents blog on Philly.com]
Psoriasis in the US Medicare Population: Prevalence, Treatment, and Factors Associated with Biologic Use
Junko Takeshita, Joel Gelfand, Penxiang Li, Lionel Pinto, Xinyan Yu, Preethi Rao, Hema Viswanathan, Jalpa Doshi
In the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Junko Takeshita and colleagues, including Preethi Rao and Jalpa Doshi, look at factors associated with the use of biologics and other treatments for psoriasis. They analyzed claims from a nationally representative sample of Medicare beneficiaries with Part D drug coverage. The researchers find that Medicare Part D beneficiaries without a low-income subsidy (LIS) had 70% lower odds of having received biologics than those with LIS. Similarly, the odds of having received biologics were 69% lower among black patients compared with white...
Patient satisfaction and non-UK educated nurses: a cross-sectional observational study of English National Health Service Hospitals
Hayley Germack, Peter Griffiths, Douglas Sloane, Anne Marie Rafferty, Jane Ball, Linda Aiken
In BMJ Open, Hayley Germack and colleagues, including Linda Aiken, examine the association between patient satisfaction with nursing care in National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in England and the proportion of non-UK educated nurses providing care. The authors used data from the 2010 NHS Adult Inpatient Survey merged with data from nurse and hospital administrator surveys. They found a significant association between the percentage of non-UK educated nurses providing bedside care and patient satisfaction; hospitals with higher percentages of non-UK educated nurses had lower...
The Cadillac Tax – The Long Goodbye?
We may be witnessing the death of the Cadillac tax…a slow, Washington, DC style, death. The two-year delay in the tax, included in the end-of-year budget deal, was the first major legislative change to the ACA and the tax’s first figurative “nail in the coffin”.
New Year, New Issues
It is cold outside, but certain health policy debates are hot enough to thaw even snowy Philadelphia. Puns aside, 2016 looks like it will provide no shortage of interesting health policy developments. Here’s what we expect to be talking about in 2016 on Insurance Reform, one of our key research and policy themes.