April 2015

The use of an 80% threshold or other binary cut point may be insufficient for characterizing the relationship between medication adherence and Medicare spending.

Venous thromboembolism during or after recent hospitalization for medical illness contributes a substantial economic burden to society across all hospital and ambulatory care delivered.

Functional status is an important predictor of an acute care readmission in patients who have had a unilateral hip fracture.

This study examines factors impacting the receipt of an outpatient colonoscopy by VA or non-VA providers in older veterans dually eligible for VA/Medicare benefits.

Only 1.2% of community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries who received hospital-based observation services in 2010 were discharged to an SNF not covered by Medicare.

Older adults who prefer to delegate insurance decisions tend to be female and married, to have less Medicare knowledge, and to have someone in their lives they trust to make decisions for them.

Explanations for, and implications of, the sharp contrast between the results of randomized and nonrandomized trials of care management to lower total healthcare costs are examined.

Telephone nursing advice for home care offers an effective and clinically appropriate way to manage upper respiratory infection symptoms for adult members of a large integrated health plan.

A qualitative study to understand clinical providers' attitudes and beliefs about polypharmacy and their perceived barriers to and facilitators of appropriate medication discontinuation.

There are concerns that retail clinics provide inferior quality of care. The authors found no difference in quality among retail clinics, physician offices, and emergency departments.

This study describes the small number of individuals responsible for larger shares of healthcare cost persistently over a 3-year period.

The authors report on a conceptual "specialty ACO" design in cardiology in which cardiology-specific historic spending targets are created to capture cardiovascular disease—related reimbursement and a quality measurement system is introduced.

Innovations are powering the evolution of patient-centered care, and health plans are at the center of this innovation story.