May 2018

A telephonic transitional care program at a rural hospital reduced postdischarge Medicare spending by 31% and reduced inpatient spending for Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries.

Veterans enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans differed from fee-for-service sector enrollees in several demographic, geographic, and clinical characteristics and in patterns of medication use.

Development, validation, and application of hepatitis C case-finding algorithms to describe the care cascade among a commercially insured population in the United States.

More consideration should be focused on consumer decision making and the quality and costs of acute care, and less attention should be paid to where care is delivered.

Postvisit phone education from an emergency physician and/or mailed information about alternative venues of care reduced subsequent emergency department (ED) utilization for low-acuity treat-and-release adult ED patients.

Formulary restrictions on brand name noninsulin antihyperglycemic drugs have little impact on treatment intensification patterns among low-income patients with diabetes in Medicare Part D.

Cost display and cost charge induce different test ordering behavior depending on the healthcare setting.

Hispanic patients with Medicaid were more likely to be admitted for ambulatory care–sensitive conditions after Nevada’s Medicaid expansion.

The success of recommendations to improve screening often rests on the availability of efficacious therapies, coverage policies, and other factors that enable and justify screening.

Reducing specialty leakage is promoted as crucial for accountable care organizations (ACOs). This study finds that Medicare ACOs had modest reductions in specialty use and minimal changes in leakage.

Revisions of the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program should consider including community characteristics in risk adjustment models and adding mechanisms that recognize improvement given the uniqueness of the Mississippi Delta region.