Role of Specialty Drugs in Rising Drug Prices for Medicare Part D.

Importance: Prices for brand-name drugs affect both federal spending and out-of-pocket liability for Medicare Part D enrollees.

Objective: To examine how prices for brand-name drugs, net of rebates and discounts, have changed from 2010 to 2019 and to examine the role of specialty drugs in those changes.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This study involved a descriptive analysis of prescription drug spending and prices between 2010 and 2019.

Spending on and Use of Clinician-Administered Drugs in Medicare.

Importance: Medicare Part B drug expenditures have increased in recent years. This trend is likely to persist given the increased use and availability of biologics.

Objectives: To assess the extent to which Medicare Part B spending growth was associated with changes in price vs quantity, and how these trends interacted with entry of new drugs into the marketplace.

Medicare Advantage Enrollment and Beneficiary Risk Scores: Difference-in-Differences Analyses Show Increases for All Enrollees On Account of Market-Wide Changes.

Medicare adjusts payments to Medicare Advantage (MA) insurers using risk scores that summarize the relationship between fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare spending and beneficiaries' demographic characteristics and documented health conditions. Research shows that MA insurers have increasingly documented conditions more thoroughly than traditional Medicare-resulting in higher payments to insurers-but little is known about what factors contribute to diverging risk scores. We apportion that divergence between market-wide increases and increases that vary with length of MA enrollment.

The impact of hospital mergers on treatment intensity and health outcomes.

Objective: To analyze the impact of hospital mergers on treatment intensity and health outcomes.

Data: Hospital inpatient data from California for 1990 through 2006, encompassing 40 mergers.

Study Design: I used a geographic-based IV approach to determine the effect of a zip code's exposure to a merger.