Health affairs
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Increasing use of the emergency department (ED) is well documented, but little is known about the type and severity of ED visits or their distribution across safety-net and non-safety-net hospitals. We examined the rates of high-intensity ED visits--characterized by their use of advanced imaging, consultations with specialists, the evaluation of multiple systems, and highly complex medical decision making--by patients with a severe, potentially life-threatening illness in California from 2002 through 2009. Total annual ED visits increased by 25 percent, from 9.0 million to 11.3 million, but high-intensity ED visits nearly doubled, increasing 87 percent from 778,000 to 1.5 million per year. ⋯ Annual ED admissions increased by 39 percent overall; most of this increase was attributable to high-intensity ED admissions, which increased by 88 percent. Safety-net EDs experienced an increase in high-intensity visits of 157 percent, compared to an increase of 61 percent at non-safety-net EDs. These findings suggest a trend toward intensification of ED care, particularly at safety-net hospitals, whose patients may have limited access to care outside the ED.
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Medicare's approximately 250 accountable care organizations (ACOs) care for a growing portion of all fee-for-service beneficiaries across the United States. We examined where ACOs have formed and what regional factors are predictive of ACO formation. Understanding these factors could help policy makers foster growth in areas with limited ACO development. ⋯ Key regional factors associated with ACO formation include a greater fraction of hospital risk sharing (capitation), larger integrated hospital systems, and primary care physicians practicing in large groups. Area income, Medicare per capita spending, Medicare Advantage enrollment rates, and physician density were not associated with ACO formation. Together, these results imply that underlying provider integration in a region may help drive the formation of ACOs.
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In attempting to explain why hospitals vary in the quality of care delivered to patients, a considerable body of health policy research points to differences in hospital characteristics such as ownership, safety-net status, and geographic location as the most important contributing factors. This article examines the extent to which a patient's type or lack of insurance may also play a role in determining the quality of care received at any given hospital. We compared within-hospital quality, as measured by risk-adjusted mortality rates, for patients according to their insurance status. ⋯ To a lesser extent, privately insured patients also had lower risk-adjusted mortality rates than those in other payer groups. Medicare patients appeared particularly vulnerable to receiving inferior care. These findings suggest that to help reduce care disparities, public payers and hospitals should measure care quality for different insurance groups and monitor differences in treatment practices within hospitals.
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Biologics are medicines derived from a biological source. Their high prices and rapid uptake have raised hopes that with the gradual expiration of patents on the first generations of biologics, the advent of lower-cost follow-on products known as biosimilars will help "bend the cost curve." Although biosimilars have been available since 2006 within the European Union and are expected to save $15-$44 billion by 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has yet to finalize the necessary regulatory processes for their approval in the United States. The European experience suggests, however, that once these are in place, the US biosimilar market may well emerge as bimodal: Initially, modestly discounted biosimilars deemed noninterchangeable with the original products will compete to become the initial treatment of choice in new patients. Subsequently, a second market may be anticipated for those products able to meet the FDA's higher standard for "interchangeability." In that market, discounts may be more dramatic.