Reducing health care costs

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Importance: Medicare launched the mandatory Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement bundled payment model in 67 urban areas for approximately 800 hospitals following its experience in the voluntary Acute Care Episodes (ACE) and Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) demonstration projects. Little information from ACE and BPCI exists to guide hospitals in redesigning care for mandatory joint replacement bundles. Objective: To analyze changes in quality, internal hospital costs, and postacute care (PAC) spending for lower extremity joint replacement bundled payment episodes encompassing hospitalization and 30 days of PAC...

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BACKGROUND: Data suggest the overuse of repeat colonoscopies, especially in patients at low risk for colorectal cancer. Our objective was to evaluate the time to repeat colonoscopies in low-risk patients aged 50-79 years old and the associated patient- and endoscopist-related factors. METHODS: All patients aged 50-79 years of age who underwent a complete outpatient colonoscopy with a negative result between 2000 and 2007 were identified from the Ontario Health Insurance Plan database...

IMPORTANCE: Wasteful practices are widespread in the US health care system. It is unclear if payment models intended to improve health care efficiency, such as the Medicare accountable care organization (ACO) programs, discourage the provision of low-value services. OBJECTIVE: To assess whether the first year of the Medicare Pioneer ACO program was associated with a reduction in use of low-value services. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: In a difference-in-differences analysis, we compared use of low-value services between Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries attributed to health care provider groups that entered the Pioneer program (ACO group) and beneficiaries attributed to other health care providers (control group) before (2009-2011) vs after (2012) Pioneer ACO contracts began...

PURPOSE: Common labs such as a daily complete blood count or a daily basic metabolic panel represent possible waste and have been targeted by professional societies and the Choosing Wisely campaign for critical evaluation. We undertook a multifaceted quality-improvement (QI) intervention in a large community hospitalist group to decrease unnecessary common labs. METHODS: The QI intervention was composed of academic detailing, audit and feedback, and transparent reporting of the frequency with which common labs were ordered as daily within the hospitalist group...

BACKGROUND: Patients discharged early from the medical intensive care unit (MICU) are at risk of deterioration, MICU readmission, and increased mortality. An earlier discharge to a medical ward is desirable to reduce costs but it may adversely affect outcomes. To address this problem, a new model for the MICU transition of care was implemented at our academic center: The MICU team continued to manage all patients transferred from the MICU to the medical ward for at least 24 hours. METHODS: Data were collected for all MICU patients admitted 1 year before and 1 year after the intervention...

IMPORTANCE: Delirium, an acute disorder with high morbidity and mortality, is often preventable through multicomponent nonpharmacological strategies. The efficacy of these strategies for preventing subsequent adverse outcomes has been limited to small studies to date. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate available evidence on multicomponent nonpharmacological delirium interventions in reducing incident delirium and preventing poor outcomes associated with delirium. DATA SOURCES: PubMed, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews from January 1, 1999, to December 31, 2013...

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IMPORTANCE: Patient-centered medical homes have not been shown to reduce adverse outcomes or costs in adults or children with chronic illness. OBJECTIVE: To assess whether an enhanced medical home providing comprehensive care prevents serious illness (death, intensive care unit [ICU] admission, or hospital stay >7 days) and/or reduces costs among children with chronic illness. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Randomized clinical trial of high-risk children with chronic illness (≥3 emergency department visits, ≥2 hospitalizations, or ≥1 pediatric ICU admissions during previous year, and >50% estimated risk for hospitalization) treated at a high-risk clinic at the University of Texas, Houston, and randomized to comprehensive care (n = 105) or usual care (n = 96)...

Current approaches to controlling health care costs have strengths and weaknesses. We propose an alternative, "inclusive shared savings," that aims to lower medical costs through savings that are shared by physicians and patients. Inclusive shared savings may be particularly attractive in situations in which treatments, such as those for gastric cancer, are similar in clinical effectiveness and have modest differences in convenience but substantially differ in cost. Inclusive shared savings incorporates features of typical insurance coverage, shared savings, and value-based insurance design but differs from value-based insurance design, which merely seeks to decrease or eliminate out-of-pocket costs...