Assessment of the Medicare Advantage Risk Adjustment Model for Measuring Veterans Affairs Hospital Performance.

Importance: Policymakers and consumers are eager to compare hospitals on performance metrics, such as surgical complications or unplanned readmissions, measured from administrative data. Fair comparisons depend on risk adjustment algorithms that control for differences in case mix.

Objective: To examine whether the Medicare Advantage risk adjustment system version 21 (V21) adequately risk adjusts performance metrics for Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals.

Persistence of High Health Care Costs among VA Patients.

Objectives: To examine high-cost patients in VA and factors associated with persistence in high costs over time.

Data Sources: Secondary data for FY2008-2012.

Data Extraction: We obtained VA and Medicare utilization and cost records for VA enrollees and drew a 20 percent random sample (N = 1,028,568).

Effect of an Intensive Outpatient Program to Augment Primary Care for High-Need Veterans Affairs Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Many organizations are adopting intensive outpatient care programs for high-need patients, yet little is known about their effectiveness in integrated systems with established patient-centered medical homes.

Objective: To evaluate how augmenting the Veterans Affairs (VA) medical home (Patient Aligned Care Teams [PACT]) with an Intensive Management program (ImPACT) influences high-need patients' costs, health care utilization, and experience.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Randomized clinical trial at a single VA facility.

Racial Differences in Chronic Conditions and Sociodemographic Characteristics Among High-Utilizing Veterans.

Purpose: African-Americans are disproportionally represented among high-risk, high-utilizing patients. To inform program development for this vulnerable population, the current study describes racial variation in chronic conditions and sociodemographic characteristics among high-utilizing patients in the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System (VA).

Methods: We identified the 5 % most costly Veterans who used inpatient or outpatient care at the VA during fiscal year 2010 (N = 237,691) based on costs of inpatient and outpatient care, pharmacy services, and VA-sponsored contract care.

Auspicious birth dates among Chinese in California.

The number eight is considered lucky in Chinese culture, e.g. the Beijing Olympics began at 8:08 pm on 8/8/2008.

Multimorbidity and healthcare utilisation among high-cost patients in the US Veterans Affairs Health Care System.

Objectives: To investigate the relationship between multimorbidity and healthcare utilisation patterns among the highest cost patients in a large, integrated healthcare system.

Design: In this retrospective cross-sectional study of all patients in the U.S.

Treating age-related macular degeneration: comparing the use of two drugs among medicare and veterans affairs populations.

While new biologics have revolutionized the treatment of age-related macular degeneration-the leading cause of severe vision loss among older adults-these new drugs have also raised concerns over the economic impact of medical innovation. The two leading agents are similar in effectiveness but vary greatly in price-up to $2,000 per injection for ranibizumab compared to $50 for bevacizumab. We examined the diffusion of these drugs in fee-for-service Medicare and Veterans Affairs (VA) systems during 2005-11, in part to assess the impact that differing financial incentives had on prescribing.