Objective The aim of this study was to examine the impact of pre-existing malnutrition on survival and economic implications in elderly patients with diabetes. Research design and methods A retrospective observational study was conducted to examine the impact of malnutrition with or without other significant health conditions on survival time and healthcare costs using the Centers for Medicar...

A BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE OF THE ANNUAL QUALITY AND RESOURCE USE REPORTS ........................................................................................................................................ 1 B EXHIBITS INCLUDED IN THE ANNUAL QUALITY AND RESOURCE USE REPORTS ............... 2 Your TIN’s 2017 Value Modifier .........................................................................

OBJECTIVES To estimate the frequency and characteristics of opioid prescribing by multiple providers in Medicare and the association with hospital admissions related to opioid use. DESIGN Retrospective cohort study. SETTING Database of prescription drugs and medical claims in 20% random sample of Medicare beneficiaries in 2010. PARTICIPANTS 1,808,355 Medicare beneficiaries who filled at l...

CONTEXT Responses to simple questions that predict subsequent health care utilization are of interest to both capitated health plans and the payer. OBJECTIVE To determine how responses to a single question about general health status predict subsequent health care expenditures. DESIGN Participants in the 1992 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey were asked the following question: "In general...

BACKGROUND This study reports on the trends in the volume and outcomes of coronary revascularization procedures performed on Medicare beneficiaries between 2008 and 2012. METHODS AND RESULTS This retrospective study identifies all Medicare beneficiaries undergoing a coronary revascularization procedure: coronary artery bypass graft surgery or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) performed...

Insurance coverage through the traditional Medicare program is complex, fragmented, and incomplete. Beneficiaries must purchase supplemental private insurance to fill in the gaps. While impoverished beneficiaries may receive supplemental coverage through Medicaid and subsidies for prescription drugs, help is limited for people with incomes above the poverty level. This patchwork quilt leads to ...

BACKGROUND Research suggests antihypertensive medications are associated with fractures in older adults, however results are inconsistent and few have examined how the association varies over time. We sought to examine the association between antihypertensive class and incident non-vertebral fractures among older adults initiating monotherapy according to time since initiation. METHODS We use...

The Arizona Long-Term Care System (ALTCS), Arizona's Medicaid program for long-term care (LTC) beneficiaries, capitates contractors to provide a full range of acute and LTC services to financially-eligible beneficiaries determined to be at risk of institutionalization. This article compares the acute care utilization experience of LTC beneficiaries in ALTCS with those in a fee-for-service (FFS)...

Analyses of health care disparities in Medicare using administrative race and ethnicity data have typically been limited to Black and White beneficiaries. This is in part due to the small size of the other categories, inaccuracies in the race and ethnicity codes, and caveats that more extensive analyses would produce biased results. While previous Medicare efforts certainly improved the accurac...

balance in these areas appears to be affected by the “move to the suburbs.” The figures on migration between States with common borders often reflect this type of movement. When, for example, roughly 1,400 aged beneficiaries moved from the District of Columbia to Maryland during the survey year and only 400 moved into that jurisdiction from Maryland, the result was a net, loss of 1,000 for the ...