Role of supply chain intermediaries in steering hospital product choice: Group Purchasing Organizations and biosimilars.

Over 95% of hospitals in the United States use pooling alliances, known as Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs), to purchase medications, devices, and supplies. While GPOs create savings for hospitals through lowered prices and reduced administrative burden, critics allege that these supply chain intermediaries reduce competition, particularly if GPOs concentrate purchasing from larger, dominant manufacturers. Using a mixed-methods design, we studied whether GPOs influence hospital purchasing behavior and explored the contracting mechanisms used by GPOs.

The Role Of Financial Incentives In Biosimilar Uptake In Medicare: Evidence From The 340B Program.

Biosimilar drugs-lower-cost alternatives to expensive biologic drugs-have the potential to slow the growth of US drug spending. However, rates of biosimilar uptake have varied across hospital outpatient providers. We investigated whether the 340B Drug Pricing Program, which offers eligible hospitals substantial discounts on drug purchases, inhibits biosimilar uptake.

Changes in Medicare Part B Spending for Biologic Drugs After Biosimilar Entry Into the Market.

This cross-sectional study describes changes in annual Medicare Part B spending for biologic drugs after biosimilar entry, focusing on the first 4 products to experience biosimilar competition: filgrastim, infliximab, epoetin alpha, and pegfilgrastim.

Using Administrative Data to Examine Telemedicine Usage Among Medicaid Beneficiaries During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic necessitated the replacement of in-person physician consultations with telemedicine. During the pandemic, Medicaid covered the cost of telemedicine visits.

Objectives: The aim was to measure the adoption of telemedicine during the pandemic.

Trends in Health Care Utilization and Expenditures in the United States Across 5 Decades: 1977-2017.

Background: Health care expenditures in the United States are high and rising, with significant increases over the decades. The delivery, organization, and financing of the health care system has evolved over time due to technological innovation, policy changes, patient preferences, altering payment mechanisms, shifting demographics, and other factors.

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine trends over time in health care utilization and expenditures in the United States.

Physician, Practice, and Patient Characteristics Associated With Biosimilar Use in Medicare Recipients.

Importance: Biosimilars, or highly similar versions of complex biologic drugs, have the potential to slow drug spending growth; however, biosimilar uptake in the United States has been slow. Little is known about barriers to biosimilar uptake following drug launch.

Objective: To examine the patient, physician, and practice characteristics associated with biosimilar use in the Medicare population.

Food insecurity, health care utilization, and health care expenditures.

Objective: To disentangle the relationships among food insecurity, health care utilization, and health care expenditures.

Data Sources/study Setting: We use national data on 13 465 adults (age ≥ 18) from the 2016 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), the first year of the food insecurity measures.

Study Design: We employ two-stage empirical models (probit for any health care use/expenditure, ordinary least squares, and generalized linear models for amount of utilization/expenditure), controlling for demographics, health insurance, poverty status, chronic conditions, and other predictors.