Combining Patient Survey Data With Diagnosis Codes Improved Medicare Advantage Risk-Adjustment Accuracy.

Under the current Medicare Advantage (MA) risk-adjustment system, plans are incentivized to report diagnosis codes on enrollees' medical claims reflecting additional and more severe health conditions to increase enrollees' risk scores and corresponding plan payments. To improve the integrity of risk adjustment, researchers have proposed four alternative methods to construct risk scores: calculate Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCC) scores excluding diagnosis codes from health risk assessments and chart reviews, calculate HCC scores excluding diagnosis codes most subject to score inflation, use pharmaceutical claims alone, and use self-reported survey responses alone or in combination with diagnosis codes. Using 2016-19 medical and pharmaceutical claims linked to Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey responses from 151,432 MA enrollees, we compared the predictive accuracy of each alternative strategy with the standard HCC approach.

Comparison of Procedural Outcomes of Lumenless Fixed-Helix Versus Stylet-Driven Extendable-Helix Lead Systems in Left Bundle Branch Pacing: COMPARE LBBP.

Background: Left bundle branch pacing (LBBP) has emerged as a safe and effective alternative to right ventricular pacing. Traditionally, LBBP is performed with lumenless lead (LLL); however, the use of stylet-driven lead (SDL) is on rise. We aimed to assess acute success and procedural outcomes of SDL versus LLL for LBBP.

Primary Closure of External Fixator Pin Sites Is Safe After Orthopaedic Trauma Surgery.

Objectives: To determine if rates of pin site infection and surgical site infection among patients managed with primary closure after external fixator removal were similar to those allowed to heal secondarily.

Design: Retrospective cohort.

Setting: Urban/Suburban Academic Level I Trauma Center.

Heart Failure with Mildly Reduced Ejection Fraction-A Phenotype Waiting to Be Explored.

Heart failure (HF) presents a significant global health challenge recognised by frequent hospitalisation and high mortality rates. The assessment of left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction (EF) plays a crucial role in diagnosing and predicting outcomes in HF, leading to its classification into preserved (HFpEF), reduced (HFrEF), and mildly reduced (HFmrEF) EF. HFmrEF shares features of both HFrEF and HFpEF but also exhibits distinct characteristics.