American Journal of Managed Care最新文献

Economic incentives and patent protections drive development of innovative medications. Drug prices are determined by consumer demand, not production costs. Therefore, governmental regulation risks future investment in research and development.

Objectives: We previously described a 6-item teamwork index (TEAM) with a strong relationship to provider experience, lower burnout, and intent to stay. We now sought to determine whether (1) TEAM relates to higher patient Net Promoter Score (NPS, or likelihood of patient referring to the organization) and (2) teamwork mediates a provider experience-NPS relationship.

Study design: A provider wellness survey was administered in the fall of 2019 in 6 care delivery organizations (CDOs) with patient NPS data.

Methods: Measures included a validated burnout item, 6-item TEAM measure, provider experience metric, standard intent-to-stay question, and NPS data from 79,254 patients matched to CDO. Regression analyses modeled relationships among TEAM, provider experience, and NPS. Open-ended comments were reviewed to confirm patient NPS findings.

Results: There were 1386 provider respondents (53% physicians, 47% advanced practice clinicians, 58% female, 62% White, 58% in primary care; response rate, 55.7%). Median NPS was 83%. TEAM was associated with patient NPS greater than the median (53% with high TEAM and high NPS vs 44% with low TEAM and high NPS; P < .001), as was provider experience (52% vs 45%; P < .05). In regression analyses, patient NPS was strongly related to TEAM (adjusted OR, 1.41; 95% CI, 1.25-1.60; P < .001). The provider experience-patient NPS relationship was partly mediated by TEAM. Open-ended comments confirmed positive or negative sentiments related to NPS.

Conclusions: Teamwork and provider experience relate to patient NPS, and the provider experience-NPS relationship appears to be mediated by teamwork.

Objectives: To assess whether discharging hospitals' self-reported care transition activities (CTAs) were associated with transitional care management (TCM) claims following discharge to the community and whether CTAs and TCM were associated with better patient outcomes.

Study design: Cross-sectional study of 424,115 hospitalized Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries 66 years and older who were discharged to the community in 2017 and attributed to 659 hospitals in the 2017-2018 National Survey of Healthcare Organizations and Systems (response rate, 46.5%). Of these beneficiaries, 76,156 were categorized into a Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) cohort based on admission principal diagnoses.

Methods: Using logistic regression, we examined the association between survey-based hospital-reported CTAs and an attributed beneficiary's TCM claim. We assessed the associations between hospital CTAs and TCM and beneficiary spending, utilization, and mortality in linear (continuous outcomes) and logistic (binary outcomes) regressions.

Results: Beneficiaries attributed to hospitals reporting high (top tertile vs bottom tertile) CTA had a higher probability of TCM after discharge by 3 percentage points. TCM was associated with lower 90-day episode spending (-$2803; P < .001) and improved quality (-28.7 30-day readmissions/1000 beneficiaries; P < .001; -29.7 deaths/1000 beneficiaries; P < .001), and greater use of evaluation and management visits (491/1000 beneficiaries; P = .001). Billing for TCM was associated with significantly lower spending, emergency department visits, hospitalizations, readmissions, and 90-day mortality in the HRRP cohort. Significant utilization reductions were estimated for beneficiaries attributed to high-CTA hospitals.

Conclusions: Beyond recent increases in provider TCM compensation and relaxed billing restrictions, hospitals should be encouraged to increase CTA and to enhance care transitions to improve patient outcomes and lower spending.

Objectives: The annual mean spending measures typically used to study longitudinal trends mask distributional and seasonal variation that is relevant to patients' perceptions of health care affordability and, in turn, provider collections. This study describes shifts in the distribution and seasonality of plan and patient out-of-pocket spending from 2012 through 2021.

Study design: Analysis of multipayer commercial claims data.

Methods: Medical spending per enrollee was calculated by summing inpatient, outpatient, and professional services, which comprised plan payments and out-of-pocket payments (deductible, coinsurance, co-payment). To account for the long right tail of the spending distribution, enrollees were stratified by their decile of annual medical spending, and annual mean spending estimates were calculated overall and by decile. Mean spending estimates were also calculated by quarter-year.

Results: Inflation-adjusted medical spending grew most quickly among the highest decile of spenders, without proportional growth in their out-of-pocket expenses. Out-of-pocket spending increased for the majority of enrollees in our sample prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, in real dollars and as a share of total medical spending. Out-of-pocket spending was increasingly concentrated in the early months of the calendar year, driven by deductible spending, and was lower in 2020 and 2021, plausibly due to policies limiting cost sharing for COVID-19-related services.

Conclusions: Insurance is working well to protect the highest spenders at the cost of reduced insurance generosity among spenders elsewhere in the distribution. The increasing cross-subsidization among enrollees through cost-sharing design-vs premiums-is a trend to watch among rising public concerns about underinsurance and medical debt.

Objective: To explore the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) in regard to ChatGPT among health care professionals (HCPs).

Study design: Cross-sectional study.

Methods: This web-based cross-sectional study included HCPs working at the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University in China between August 2023 and September 2023. Participants unwilling to use ChatGPT were excluded. Correlations between KAP scores were evaluated by Pearson correlation analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM).

Results: A total of 543 valid questionnaires were collected; of these, 231 questionnaires (42.54%) were completed by male HCPs. Mean (SD) knowledge, attitude, and practice scores were 6.71 (3.24) (range, 0-12), 21.27 (2.73) (range, 6-30), and 47.91 (8.17) (range, 12-60), respectively, indicating poor knowledge (55.92%), positive attitudes (70.90%), and proactive practices (79.85%). The knowledge scores were positively correlated with attitude (Pearson r = 0.216; P < .001) and practice (Pearson r = 0.283; P < .001) scores, and the attitude scores were positively correlated with practice scores (Pearson r = 0.479; P < .001). SEM showed that knowledge influenced attitude positively (β = 0.498; P < .001) but negatively influenced practice part 1 (improving work efficiency and patient experience) (β = -0.301; P < .001), practice part 2 (helping advance medical research) (β = -0.436; P < .001), practice part 3 (assisting HCPs) (β = -0.338; P  < .001), and practice part 4 (the possibilities) (β = -0.242; P < .001). Attitude positively influenced practice part 1 (β = 1.430; P  < .001), practice part 2 (β = 1.581; P < .001), practice part 3 (β = 1.513; P < .001), and practice part 4 (β = 1.387; P < .001).

Conclusion: HCPs willing to use ChatGPT in China showed poor knowledge, positive attitudes, and proactive practices regarding ChatGPT.

This article examines how predictive analytics can enhance payer initiatives to improve medication adherence. Despite its known impact on health outcomes and costs, medication nonadherence remains a widespread and persistent challenge in health care. Although payers are increasingly involved in addressing nonadherence, traditional approaches typically lead to suboptimal results due to their reactive nature and generic intervention. With improved access to data and more sophisticated machine learning tools, there is a growing opportunity for payers to use predictive analytics to stratify and target members at high risk, predict potential primary and secondary nonadherence, and preemptively intervene with tailored solutions. The potential benefit of this approach includes prevention, not only resolution, of nonadherence and leads to improved health outcomes, reduced health care costs, and increased member satisfaction. The article also discusses potential caveats to consider, such as data sharing, bias mitigation, and regulatory compliance, when implementing predictive analytics in this context.

Objectives: Most Americans have insurance that uses managed care arrangements. Regulators have long sought to ensure access to care through network adequacy regulations. However, consumers have largely been excluded from conversations about network adequacy. To our knowledge, our study is the first to assess consumer preferences for various definitions of network adequacy including those aimed at supporting health equity and reducing disparities.

Study design: We fielded a large and demographically diverse survey of US adults (N = 4008) from June 30 to July 2, 2023. The survey queried respondents about their perceptions of what adequate provider networks look like in the abstract.

Methods: Analyses were conducted using ordinary least squares regression with survey weights as well as t tests.

Results: Consumers were overwhelmingly supportive of standard definitions of adequacy focused on the number of providers and travel distance. Majorities also favored more expansive, health equity-focused definitions such as public transportation access, cultural competency, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+)-inclusive care. Being a woman; having higher levels of education, worse health, and recent experiences with the medical system; and ease of completing administrative tasks were relatively consistent positive predictors of supporting more expansive definitions. More controversial definitions saw effects of partisanship and LGBT+ identification. Rurality, insurance status, education, and recent experiences with the medical system affected perceptions of reasonable appointment wait times and travel distances.

Conclusions: Our findings indicate that consumers have broad conceptions of network adequacy. Future work should assess consumer trade-offs in resource-constrained settings as well as perceptions of providers and carriers.

Objectives: The number of commercial beneficiaries cared for by accountable care organizations (ACOs) is growing, but the literature examining their trends is nascent.

Study design: We examined commercial claims data from 2019 to 2021 to compare beneficiaries attributed to participants in Medicare Shared Savings Program ACOs with and without a major teaching hospital.

Methods: We calculated mortality and spending by setting for each ACO type by year.

Results: Compared with per-beneficiary rates at nonteaching ACOs, major teaching ACOs have lower mortality rates by up to 2.2 percentage points depending on the patient age group, $283 lower inpatient spending, and lower emergency department utilization in inpatient (-0.008) and outpatient (-0.013) settings, as well as $146 higher overall outpatient spending. Upward trends in mortality and beneficiary risk scores across both ACO types show disruption to health outcomes during COVID-19.

Conclusions: These results provide evidence that ACOs with major teaching hospitals may be more likely to achieve the value-based goals of ACOs. Means to accomplish those goals may include avoiding higher-intensity care and supporting access to lower-cost alternatives where clinically appropriate, such as reducing inpatient and emergency department stays by delivering timely, high-quality outpatient care.

The US faces a maternal health crisis as overall maternal mortality rates continue to worsen. HHS, in its Healthy People 2030 report, indicates that women in the US are more likely to die from childbirth than are women in other developed countries. The cost of the maternal health crisis and its associated morbidities is estimated to be $32.3 billion from conception to 5 years postpartum, with $18.7 billion in medical costs and $13.6 billion in nonmedical costs. Under the current health care reimbursement system, health care providers alone have little short-term incentive to bear the cost for solutions or prevention strategies that could change the social and cultural factors affecting maternal outcomes. This article provides an overview of the crisis, along with its economic and societal costs, and the role of prenatal care and premature birth in this escalating problem. The article then proposes maternal navigation for pregnant patients who chronically miss prenatal care appointments as one way to reduce premature births and associated health care costs. Through intentional and focused investment in maternal navigation by payers and providers together, health outcomes can be improved and disparities can be reduced. As a result, payer and provider costs are reduced and the interests of all parties are advanced. A connected system of support that improves health outcomes and reduces health care costs for the most at-risk patients is an essential response to a crisis that affects not only the individual but also society.

Objective: Patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) are at high risk for developing chronic kidney disease (CKD). The onset of incident CKD may complicate glycemic control among these patients. This study aimed to characterize antihyperglycemic medication use after incident CKD onset among patients with T2D to inform disease management.

Study design: Retrospective cohort study.

Methods: Patients with incident CKD and prior T2D were identified from the Optum electronic health records database between March 2013 and September 2021. Patterns of antihyperglycemic use were assessed during the 1-year baseline period and after incident CKD diagnosis and described by baseline hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C) level (controlled [< 7%] vs elevated [≥ 7%]) and CKD severity.

Results: The study consisted of 262,395 patients, of whom 51% had elevated HbA1C. After CKD onset, 23.9% of patients initiated new antihyperglycemics within 1 year. Patients with elevated HbA1C had shorter time to new treatment initiation compared with those with controlled HbA1C (median, 28.7 vs 83.7 months). Patients with elevated urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (uACR) had shorter median time to new treatment initiation (39.9-42.4 months) than those with normal uACR (59.8 months). Less than 7% of patients with stage 3 CKD and even smaller percentages of patients with higher stages of CKD utilized glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonists and sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors.

Conclusions: Treatment of T2D was considerably heterogenous by HbA1C level and CKD severity in patients with incident CKD. Current agents may not sufficiently fulfill the unmet need of T2D management in patients with CKD.