May 2010

A telephonic counseling program, directed by a predictive model, reduced end-of-life costs by 4.5% within 2 Medicare Health Support pilot programs.

Wide variation in the way clinical services are provided to similar patients for similar visit types results in highly variable costs but similar clinical outcomes.

A low-cost cardiovascular disease screening and periodic educational intervention did not increase healthcare resource utilization and expenditures at 1 year.

When a clinical staging algorithm for treatment-resistant depression was applied to administrative claims data, higher scores predicted higher future medical costs.

Patient-centered medical homes and worksite clinics represent 2 employer healthcare cost containment strategies. Although each may afford benefit, integration can yield enhanced employer value.

Fewer short-acting agonist canisters dispensed (but not dispensing of any controller) and higher ratio of controller to total medication are associated with reduced asthma exacerbations.

Although we found no DCIS treatment disparities by race/ethnicity, use of adjuvant radiation therapy was less among older women and among residents of poorer neighborhoods.

Physicians at an emergency department and in primary care evaluated the appropriateness of complaints among nonurgent patients. Low regular previous healthcare use correlated with inappropriateness.

Notifying patients and providers about the rosiglitazone cardiovascular safety alert led to sweeping changes in drug therapy that were initiated by both physicians and patients.

In a survey of local-stage prostate cancer patients, preference for prostatectomy was influenced by perceptions of its efficacy and personal burden versus nonsurgical options.

In order to encourage dissemination, this commentary is freely available in PLoS Medicine, and will also be published in Medical Decision Making, Croatian Medical Journal, The Cochrane Library, Trials, and Journal of Clinical Epidemiology.

Although the fundamental structure of Medicare Part D remained the same in 2010, the beneficiary provisions continued to improve.