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)...

OBJECTIVE To assess the effect of differing health insurance coverage of physician office visits on the use of colorectal cancer (CRC) tests among an employed and insured population. METHOD Cohort study of persons ages 50 to 64 years enrolled in fee-for-service (FFS) or preferred provider organization (PPO) health plans, where FFS plan enrollees bear disproportionate share of office visit cov...

Previous research has found Medicare risk contract enrollees to be healthier than beneficiaries in fee-for-service (FFS). Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) data were used to examine trends in health and functional status measures among risk contract and FFS enrollees from 1991 to 2004. Risk contract enrollees reported better health and functioning, but the differences tended to narrow ...

coming up with the ACO idea, is director of a health policy institute at Dartmouth’s medical school. But the medical center pulled out of the Pioneer program last year because of issues with CMS’s quarterly benchmarking methodology, and Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s leadership won’t commit to Next Gen until it knows more about the benchmarks it will be measured against. “We’ll see when we get to that p...

BACKGROUND A commonly voiced concern is that health maintenance organizations (HMOs) may withhold or delay the provision of urgent, essential care, especially for vulnerable patients like the elderly. OBJECTIVE To compare the quality of emergency care provided in Minnesota to elderly patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) who are covered by HMO vs fee-for-service (FFS) insurance. M...

OBJECTIVE To examine how FFS Medicare utilization of endoscopy procedures for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening changed after implementation of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) in 2006, which provided subsidized drug coverage and expanded the geographic availability of Medicare managed care plans across the US. DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING Using secondary...

This paper analyzes the interaction between farmer training in pest management and effects on acute pesticide poisoning and populations of beneficial insects in Nicaragua. Using farm level data from Nicaraguan bean growers, including graduates of Farmer Field Schools (FFS), other integrated pest management (IPM) outreach methods, and farmers without exposure to IPM, we found that small farmers ...

ABSTRACT: The current study determined the factors influencing perception of tea farmers towards organic production in Rulindo District, Rwanda. This used both qualitative and quantitative data from face to interviews questionnaires completed with 156 other key informants sector who were randomly selected 2019. Using function step AIC R’s MASS package, final multiple logistic regression model s...

Treatment for patients with stage IV indolent lymphoma ranges from watchful waiting to intensive chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation. In this trial we compared 2 induction regimens followed by 1 year of interferon maintenance therapy. Fludarabine, mitoxantrone (Novantrone), and dexamethasone (FND) were compared with an alternating triple therapy (ATT) regimen (CHOD-Bleo, ESHAP, and NOPP)...

Bcl-6 protein expression, a marker of germinal center origin, has been associated with a favorable prognosis in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). To determine the prognostic significance of this marker when rituximab (R) was added to cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (CHOP) chemotherapy, we prospectively studied Bcl-6 protein expression by immunohistochemical stain...