August 2014

August 20, 2014

Health reform increased Medicaid enrollment, but was not associated with Veterans Health Administration and private insurance enrollment among Massachusetts veterans.

August 20, 2014

Use of dual antiplatelet therapy was modest for patients with existing cardiovascular disease for whom subgroup analysis from a landmark clinical trial suggested benefit in preventing cardiovascular events, and low for patients with multiple risk factors without established cardiovascular disease, for whom increased cardiovascular events were suggested.

August 20, 2014

This study investigated the impact of an enhanced preventive care delivery system on healthcare expenditure and utilization trends among Medicare Advantage beneficiaries.

August 20, 2014

This study demonstrates a major influence of prehypertension and hypertension on healthcare costs in a large cohort of children, independent of body mass index.

August 21, 2014

The authors demonstrate the utility of distributed data models for reporting of local trends and variation in utilization, pricing, and spending for commercially insured beneficiaries.

August 21, 2014

This study illustrates that where clinical trials are lacking, network meta-analysis can provide valuable insights into the potential clinical and economic benefits of value-based insurance design.

August 28, 2014

Increasing access to continuous labor support from a birth doula may facilitate decreases in non-indicated cesarean rates among women who desire doula care.

September 03, 2014

Implementation of payment reform, without a corresponding change to coverage, benefit, and other payment requirements, creates conflicting incentives that may nullify the intended aim of payment reform: to improve health outcomes, while saving costs.

September 03, 2014

This study demonstrated that reduction of depression symptoms following routine treatment in primary care is significantly associated with improvements in productivity at work.

September 04, 2014

Modest weight loss (>3%) among metformin-treated patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus was associated with decreased costs, lower resource utilization, and lower rates of treatment discontinuation.

September 04, 2014

An automatic enrollment strategy for health insurance programs may not only increase the total number of enrollees but may also decrease some enrollment disparities.

September 05, 2014

This article provides an assessment of the downstream impact of coronary artery calcium scanning on the subsequent treatment patterns of non—high-risk patients.

September 05, 2014

Impact of multidisciplinary team care on reducing utilization of emergency department visits for patients with lung cancer.

September 10, 2014

This study projected that the breast cancer index assay is cost saving when used either at diagnosis or at 5 years post diagnosis.