Publications by authors named "Alice Kate G Cummings"
Article Synopsis
- A study looked at whether seeing a specialist for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects how quickly people get diagnosed and their costs.
- Patients diagnosed by specialists were usually younger and had higher health costs before their diagnosis.
- However, those diagnosed by specialists got their AD diagnosis quicker and had lower medical costs within the first year after diagnosis compared to those diagnosed by regular doctors.
Introduction: Recent developments in diagnostic technology can support earlier, more accurate diagnosis of non-Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementias.
Methods: To evaluate potential economic benefits of early rule-out of AD, annual medical resource use and costs for Medicare beneficiaries potentially misdiagnosed with AD prior to their diagnosis of vascular dementia (VD) or Parkinson's disease (PD) were compared with that of similar patients never diagnosed with AD.
Results: Patients with prior AD diagnosis used substantially more medical services every year until their VD/PD diagnosis, resulting in incremental annual medical costs of approximately $9,500-$14,000.
Objective: To assess the real-world medical services utilization and associated costs of Medicare patients with diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) treated with Apligraf (bioengineered living cellular construct (BLCC)) or Dermagraft (human fibroblast-derived dermal substitute (HFDS)) compared with those receiving conventional care (CC).
Methods: DFU patients were selected from Medicare de-identified administrative claims using ICD-9-CM codes. The analysis followed an 'intent-to-treat' design, with cohorts assigned based on use of (1) BLCC, (2) HFDS, or (3) CC (i.
Background: Opioid abuse and dependence is problematic across many age groups, including the working-age population and their dependents. Little is known, however, about the economic costs of opioid abuse/dependence imposed on employers, who pay for a substantial portion of healthcare costs through their contributions to employer-sponsored health insurance and are also affected by indirect costs such as those due to disability and workplace absenteeism.
Objective: To provide a comprehensive, current estimate of the economic burden of prescription opioid abuse/dependence to employers.
Objective: To estimate the annual incremental per-patient and overall payer burden (2012USD) of venous leg ulcers (VLU) in the US.
Methods: Beneficiaries with and without VLU were identified using two de-identified insurance claims databases: aged 65+ from a 5% random sample of Medicare beneficiaries (2007-2010: n ∼ 2.3 million); and aged 18-64 from a privately-insured population (2007-2011: n ∼ 8.
Objective: To estimate the annual, per-patient incremental burden of diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs).
Research Design And Methods: DFU patients and non-DFU patients with diabetes (controls) were selected using two de-identified databases: ages 65+ years from a 5% random sample of Medicare beneficiaries (Standard Analytical Files, January 2007-December 2010) and ages 18-64 years from a privately insured population (OptumInsight, January 2007-September 2011). Demographics, comorbidities, resource use, and costs from the payer perspective incurred during the 12 months prior to a DFU episode were identified.