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Background: Health care providers who participate as an accountable care organization (ACO) in the voluntary Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) have incentives to lower spending for Medicare patients while achieving high performance on a set of quality measures. Little is known about the extent to which early savings achieved by ACOs in the program have grown and been replicated by ACOs that entered the program in later years. ACOs that are physician groups have stronger incentives to lower spending than hospital-integrated ACOs.Methods: Using fee-for-service Medicare claims from 2009 through 2015, we performed difference-in-differences analyses to compare changes in Medicare spending for patients in ACOs before and after entry into the MSSP with concurrent changes in spending for local patients served by providers not participating in the MSSP (control group). We estimated differential changes (i.e., the between-group difference in the change from the pre-entry period) separately for hospital-integrated ACOs and physician-group ACOs that entered the MSSP in 2012, 2013, or 2014.Results: MSSP participation was associated with differential spending reductions in physician-group ACOs. These reductions grew with longer participation in the program and were significantly greater than the reductions in hospital-integrated ACOs. By 2015, the mean differential change in per-patient Medicare spending was -$474 (-4.9% of the pre-entry mean, P<0.001) for physician-group ACOs that entered in 2012, -$342 (-3.5% of the pre-entry mean, P<0.001) for those that entered in 2013, and -$156 (-1.6% of the pre-entry mean, P=0.009) for those that entered in 2014. The corresponding differential changes for hospital-integrated ACOs were -$169 (P=0.005), -$18 (P=0.78), and $88 (P=0.14), which were significantly lower than for physician-group ACOs (P<0.001). Spending reductions in physician-group ACOs constituted a net savings to Medicare of $256.4 million in 2015, whereas spending reductions in hospital-integrated ACOs were offset by bonus payments.Conclusions: After 3 years of the MSSP, participation in shared-savings contracts by physician groups was associated with savings for Medicare that grew over the study period, whereas hospital-integrated ACOs did not produce savings (on average) during the same period. (Funded by the National Institute on Aging.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To forecast out-of-pocket health care spending among older adults. Long-term forecasts allow policy makers to explore potential impacts of policy scenarios, but existing microsimulations do not incorporate details of supplemental insurance coverage and income effects on health care spending.Data Sources: Dynamic microsimulation calibrated to survey and administrative data.Study Design: We augment Urban Institute's Dynamic Simulation of Income Model (DYNASIM) with modules that incorporate demand responses and economic equilibria, with dynamics driven by exogenous technological change. A lengthy technical appendix provides details of the microsimulation model and economic assumptions for readers interested in applying these techniques.Principal Findings: The model projects total out-of-pocket spending (point of care plus premiums) as a share of income for adults aged 65 and older. People with lower incomes and poor health fare worse, despite protections of Medicaid. Spending rises 40 percent from 2012 to 2035 (from 10 to 14 percent of income) for the median beneficiary, but it increases from 5 to 25 percent of income for low-income beneficiaries and from 23 to 29 percent for the near poor who are in fair/poor health.Conclusions: Despite Medicare coverage, near-poor seniors will face out-of-pocket spending that would render them, in practical terms, underinsured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To study how differences in quality score adjustments across Medicare Advantage contracts change comparisons for individuals and contracts.Data Sources: Responses to the Medicare Advantage implementation of the Consumer Assessments of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey from 2010 to 2014.Study Design: We fit national-and state-level hierarchical models to predict CAHPS scores for individuals and contracts, adjusted for self-reported education, general health, and mental health. We allow the effects of these variables on quality measures to vary across contracts with a hierarchical model.Data Collection/extraction Methods: We perform secondary data analysis.Principal Findings: For average consumers, standard adjustment is sufficient to represent variation in contract quality standardized to a common population. For people with characteristics far from average, personalized reporting using their characteristics and contract-specific coefficients can substantially change the expected quality measures across contracts. This effect is stronger when comparing among contracts within a state than across all contracts.Conclusions: Customized reporting may help consumers select the best Medicare Advantage plan, but policies should protect against unintended consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Elderly patients with cancer are under-represented in clinical trials and risk greater toxicity from chemotherapy. These patients and their physicians need better evidence to decide among guideline-recommended regimens. We test whether patients with extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (ES SCLC) have noninferior survival and less hospital-based health care after carboplatin/etoposide compared with cisplatin/etoposide. Methods We analyzed SEER-Medicare data for beneficiaries with ES SCLC diagnosed at age 67 years and older between 1995 and 2009. Among patients treated with first-line chemotherapy in the ambulatory setting, 831 received cisplatin/etoposide and 2,846 received carboplatin/etoposide. Propensity score matching (2:1 ratio) yielded 778 cisplatin/etoposide and 1,502 carboplatin/etoposide patients. Results Survival was nearly identical in the two groups: 35.7 weeks for cisplatin/etoposide and 35.9 weeks for carboplatin/etoposide. The hazard ratio of 1 (95% Cl, 0.91 to 1.09) excluded our prespecified threshold, indicating noninferiority. Mortality at 6 months was indistinguishable: 35% for cisplatin/etoposide and 34% for carboplatin/etoposide. After carboplatin/etoposide, patients were less likely to be admitted to a hospital (80% v86%, P < .001) and had fewer hospitalizations (median 1 v 2, odds ratio 0.76,95% Cl, 0.65 to 0.9), ED visits (median 1 v 2, odds ratio 0.82, 95% Cl, 0.7 to 0.96), and ICU stays (median 0 v 0, odds ratio 0.82, 95% Cl, 0.69 to 0.99). Conclusion First-line carboplatin/etoposide is associated with similar survival and less subsequent hospital-based health care use than cisplatin/etoposide among elderly patients with ES SCLC treated in ambulatory settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP), accountable care organizations (ACOs) have financial incentives to lower spending and improve quality. We used quasi-experimental methods to assess the early performance of MSSP ACOs.Methods: Using Medicare claims from 2009 through 2013 and a difference-in-differences design, we compared changes in spending and in performance on quality measures from before the start of ACO contracts to after the start of the contracts between beneficiaries served by the 220 ACOs entering the MSSP in mid-2012 (2012 ACO cohort) or January 2013 (2013 ACO cohort) and those served by non-ACO providers (control group), with adjustment for geographic area and beneficiary characteristics. We analyzed the 2012 and 2013 ACO cohorts separately because entry time could reflect the capacity of an ACO to achieve savings. We compared ACO savings according to organizational structure, baseline spending, and concurrent ACO contracting with commercial insurers.Results: Adjusted Medicare spending and spending trends were similar in the ACO cohorts and the control group during the precontract period. In 2013, the differential change (i.e., the between-group difference in the change from the precontract period) in total adjusted annual spending was -$144 per beneficiary in the 2012 ACO cohort as compared with the control group (P=0.02), consistent with a 1.4% savings, but only -$3 per beneficiary in the 2013 ACO cohort as compared with the control group (P=0.96). Estimated savings were consistently greater in independent primary care groups than in hospital-integrated groups among 2012 and 2013 MSSP entrants (P=0.005 for interaction). MSSP contracts were associated with improved performance on some quality measures and unchanged performance on others.Conclusions: The first full year of MSSP contracts was associated with early reductions in Medicare spending among 2012 entrants but not among 2013 entrants. Savings were greater in independent primary care groups than in hospital-integrated groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Little is known about real-world facility-level preferences for cardiac resynchronization therapy devices with (CRT-D) and without (CRT-P) defibrillator backup. We quantify this variation at the facility level and exploit this variation to compare outcomes of patients receiving these 2 devices.Methods and Results: Claims data from fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries were used to identify new CRT-P and CRT-D implants, 2006 to 2012. We modeled factors associated with receipt of each device, and compared mortality, hospitalizations, and reoperations for patients receiving each using both logistic regression and instrumental variable analysis to account for confounding. Among 71 459 device recipients (CRT-P, 11 925; CRT-D, 59 534; 31% women), CRT-P recipients were older, more likely to be women, and had more comorbidities. Variation in device selection among facilities was substantial: After adjustment for patient characteristics, the odds of receiving a CRT-P (versus CRT-D) device were 7.6× higher for a patient treated at a facility in the highest CRT-P use quartile versus a facility in the lowest CRT-P use quartile. Logistic modeling suggested a survival advantage for CRT-D devices but with falsification end points indicating residual confounding. By contrast, in the instrumental variable analysis using facility variability as the proposed instrument, clinical characteristics and falsification end points were well balanced, and 1-year mortality in patients who received CRT-P versus CRT-D implants did not differ, while CRT-P patients had a lower probability of hospitalizations and reoperations in the year following implant.Conclusions: CRT-P versus CRT-D selection varies substantially among facilities, adjusted for clinical factors. After instrumental variable adjustment for clinical covariates and facility preference, survival was no different between the devices. Therefore, CRT-P may be preferred for Medicare beneficiaries considering new CRT implantation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]