Impact of physician reminders on the use of influenza vaccinations: a randomized trial.

Objective: To analyze the impact of mailed physician reminders to immunize their patients.

Design: Randomized trial involving Washington State physiatrists participating in the Medicare program. In 1997, all physiatrists in the state were separated into solo or group practice.

Influenza vaccinations of Washington state Medicare beneficiaries seen by physiatrists in the outpatient setting in 1994.

Objective: To compare influenza vaccination billing rates for patients seen by physiatrists with those of four other specialties: neurology, rheumatology, family practice, and internal medicine.

Design: Retrospective cohort analysis using Medicare billing data.

Patients: 234,164 Medicare outpatients seen in Washington state between September 1 and December 31, 1994.

The effect of Medicare's payment system for rehabilitation hospitals on length of stay, charges, and total payments.

Background: Medicare's system for the payment of rehabilitation hospitals is based on limits derived from a hospital's average allowable charges per patient discharged during a base year. Thereafter, payments are capped but hospitals receive incentive payments if charges per patient are reduced in succeeding years. We hypothesized that per-patient charges would increase during the base year and then decrease in subsequent years.