OBJECTIVE To identify factors associated with the cost of treating high-cost Medicare beneficiaries. DATA SOURCES A national sample of 1.6 million elderly, Medicare beneficiaries linked to 2004-2005 Community Tracking Study Physician Survey respondents and local market data from secondary sources. STUDY DESIGN Using 12 months of claims data from 2005 to 2006, the sample was divided into pre...

Jump-Starting Self-Employment? Evidence among Welfare Participants in Argentina One important concern of governments in developing countries is on how to phase-out large safety nets programs. This paper evaluates the short run effects of one possible exit strategy, programs that promote self-employment, in Argentina. We provide evidence that a small fraction of beneficiaries were attracted by t...

This article represents a preliminary investigation of factors influencing the decision of disabled-worker beneficiaries to look for employment and to return to work. Using the New Beneficiary Followup Survey and the special add-on frame of beneficiaries who had earnings, the article analyzes the impact of vocational rehabilitation (VR), work incentives, and employer workplace accommodations on...

BACKGROUND Cross national drug utilization studies can provide information about different influences on physician prescribing. This is important for medicines with issues around safety and quality of use, like non selective non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (ns-NSAIDs) and cyclo-oxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors. To enable comparison of prescription medicine use across different jurisdictions...

It has been hypothesized that Medicare Part D, which provides prescription drug insurance for Medicare beneficiaries, may partially offset government spending on Part A and B services. The research literature broadly supports this hypothesis, but some uncertainty remains regarding the magnitude of the effect. Furthermore, little is known about the extent to which changes in beneficiary health m...

BACKGROUND In December 2000, Medicare eliminated time limitations in immunosuppressant coverage after kidney transplant for beneficiaries age ≥65 and those who were disabled. This change did not apply to younger non-disabled beneficiaries who qualified for Medicare only because of their end-stage renal disease (ESRD). We sought to examine access to waitlisting for kidney transplantation in a co...

INTRODUCTION The increase in chronic health conditions among Medicare beneficiaries has implications for the Medicare system. The objective of this study was to use the US Department of Health and Human Services Strategic Framework on multiple chronic conditions as a basis to examine the prevalence of multiple chronic conditions among Medicare beneficiaries. ANALYSIS We analyzed Centers for M...

BACKGROUND Two assumptions underpin the implementation of pay for performance in Medicare: that with the use of claims data, patients can be assigned to a physician or to a practice that will have primary responsibility for their care, and that a meaningful fraction of the care physicians deliver is for patients for whom they have primary responsibility. METHODS We analyzed Medicare claims fr...

PURPOSE To examine HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor (statin) drug dispensing patterns to Nova Scotia Seniors' Pharmacare program (NSSPP) beneficiaries over a 14-year period in response to: 1) rosuvastatin market entry in 2003, 2) JUPITER trial publication in 2008, and 3) generic atorvastatin availability in 2010. METHODS All NSSPP beneficiaries who redeemed at least one prescription for a statin f...

BACKGROUND Previous studies have disagreed on whether patients who receive primary care from federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) have different utilization patterns than patients who receive care elsewhere. Our objective was to compare patterns of healthcare utilization between Medicare beneficiaries who received primary care from FQHCs and Medicare beneficiaries who received primary car...