Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Community Mental Health Use Among Autistic Adolescents and Young Adults.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this cohort study was to evaluate differences in rate of co-occurring mental health (MH) conditions among transition-age autistic youth (TAYA) who are Black, indigenous, and other people of color, and to identify enabling variables associated with any community MH visit in this population. METHODS: Medicare-Medicaid Linked Enrollees Analytic Data Source 2012 data were used for this study. TAYA 14-29 years old who received fee-for-service Medicare, Medicaid, or both were included. Predisposing, enabling, and need variables associated with both presence of MH conditions and any community MH visit were examined with general linear modeling. RESULTS: N = 122,250 TAYA were included. Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Hispanic TAYA were significantly less likely than White TAYA to have a diagnosis of substance-use, depressive, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or post-traumatic stress disorders. These groups were also significantly less likely to have had a community MH visit in the past year after controlling for predisposing, enabling, and need variables. Enabling variables associated with greater use of at least one community MH visit included dual enrollment in both Medicare and Medicaid and 12+ months of enrollment in 1115 or 1915(C) Medicaid waivers. DISCUSSION: Service delivery factors are an important area of future research, particularly dual enrollment and coverage disparities for Black, indigenous, and other people of color TAYA. Examining coverage of managed care enrollees, including differences by state, may offer additional insights on how these factors impact care.

Beyond demonstrations: implementing a primary care hybrid payment model in Medicare.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's (NASEM's) 2021 report on primary care called for a hybrid payment approach-a mix of fee-for-service and population-based payment-with performance accountability to strike the proper balance for desired practice transformation and to support primary care's important and expanding role. The NASEM report also proposed substantial increases to primary care payment and reforms to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. This paper addresses pragmatic ways to implement these recommendations, describing and proposing solutions to the main implementation challenges. The urgent need for primary care payment reform calls for adopting a hybrid model within the Medicare fee schedule rather than engaging in another round of demonstrations, despite legal and practical obstacles to adoption. The paper explores reasons for adopting a roughly 50:50 blend of fee-for-service and population-based payment and addresses other design features, presenting reasons why spending accountability should rely on utilization measures under primary care control rather than performance on total cost of care, and proposes a fresh approach to quality, emphasizing that quality measures should be parsimonious, focused on important outcomes with demonstrated quality improvement.

Racial and Ethnic Differences in Rates and Age of Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

This cohort study uses electronic health record data to assess racial and ethnic disparities in prevalence or median age of diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in children.

Association of Pioneer Accountable Care Organizations vs traditional Medicare fee for service with spending, utilization, and patient experience.

IMPORTANCE: The Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Model aims to drive health care organizations to reduce expenditures while improving quality for fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare beneficiaries. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether FFS beneficiaries aligned with Pioneer ACOs had smaller increases in spending and utilization than other FFS beneficiaries while retaining similar levels of care satisfaction in the first 2 years of the Pioneer ACO Model. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Participants were FFS Medicare beneficiaries aligned with 32 ACOs (n = 675,712 in 2012; n = 806,258 in 2013) and a comparison group of alignment-eligible beneficiaries in the same markets (n = 13,203,694 in 2012; n = 12,134,154 in 2013). Analyses comprised difference-in-differences multivariable regression with Oaxaca-Blinder reweighting to model expenditure and utilization outcomes over a 2-year performance period (2012-2013) and 2-year baseline period (2010-2011) as well as adjusted analyses of Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Systems (CAHPS) survey responses among random samples of beneficiaries in Pioneer ACOs (n = 13,097), FFS (n = 116,255), or Medicare Advantage (n = 203,736) for 2012 care. EXPOSURES: Beneficiary alignment with a Pioneer ACO in 2012 or 2013. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Medicare spending, utilization, and CAHPS domain scores. RESULTS: Total spending for beneficiaries aligned with Pioneer ACOs in 2012 or 2013 increased from baseline to a lesser degree relative to comparison populations. Differential changes in spending were approximately -$35.62 (95% CI, -$40.12 to -$31.12) per-beneficiary-per-month (PBPM) in 2012 and -$11.18 (95% CI, -$15.84 to -$6.51) PBPM in 2013, which amounted to aggregate reductions in increases of approximately -$280 (95% CI, -$315 to -$244) million in 2012 and -$105 (95% CI, -$148 to -$61) million in 2013. Inpatient spending showed the largest differential change of any spending category (-$14.40 [95% CI, -$17.31 to -$11.49] PBPM in 2012; -$6.46 [95% CI, -$9.26 to -$3.66] PBPM in 2013). Changes in utilization of physician services, emergency department, and postacute care followed a similar pattern. Compared with other Medicare beneficiaries, ACO-aligned beneficiaries reported higher mean scores for timely care (77.2 [ACO] vs 71.2 [FFS] vs 72.7 [MA]) and for clinician communication (91.9 [ACO] vs 88.3 [FFS] vs 88.7 [MA]). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: In the first 2 years of the Pioneer ACO Model, beneficiaries aligned with Pioneer ACOs, as compared with general Medicare FFS beneficiaries, exhibited smaller increases in total Medicare expenditures and differential reductions in utilization of different health services, with little difference in patient experience.

Care coordination agreements: barriers, facilitators, and lessons learned.

BACKGROUND: With growing pressure to improve the quality and coordination of care, physicians feel a need to streamline their relationships with other practitioners around shared care for patients. Some physicians have developed written agreements that articulate the respective responsibilities of 2 or more parties for coordination of patient care, ie, care coordination agreements (CCAs). OBJECTIVES: To describe how CCAs are formed and explore facilitators and barriers to adoption of effective CCAs, the extent to which CCAs may be replicable in different market contexts, and the implications for policies and programs that aim to improve the coordination of care. STUDY DESIGN: Qualitative study of primary care physicians participating in CCAs and representatives of their specialist, hospital, or community-based partners. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews with participating providers and national thought leaders in care coordination were reviewed to develop key themes. RESULTS: Agreements that address referral and access processes were considered useful by all practices that had implemented them. Practices that implemented agreements including guidance on shared management of specific clinical conditions (comanagement) also found them useful. CCAs were most successful in settings where both parties to the agreement already had stable communication pathways (such as an electronic health record [EHR], designated staff) and strong working relationships. CONCLUSIONS: Policy changes (such as shifts in reimbursement to favor collaborative care or clarification of laws governing such collaborations) can help to support the development and implementation of CCAs, and can address factors that currently make some markets less supportive of coordination.

The relationship between physician compensation strategies and the intensity of care delivered to Medicare beneficiaries.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between primary care physicians' (PCPs) payment arrangements and the total costs and intensity of care for specific episodes of care for Medicare beneficiaries. DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING: We combined data from the 2004 to 2005 Community Tracking Study Physician Survey on PCP compensation methods with administrative data from the Medicare program for beneficiaries to whom these physicians provided services over the time period 2004-2006. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional analysis of physician survey data linked to Medicare claims. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The 2,211 PCP respondents included 937 internists and 1,274 family or general physicians who were linked to more than 250,000 Medicare enrollees. Most physicians (62 percent) had been in practice for 11 or more years and 87 percent were board certified. The total spending models show that for both employed physicians and owners, those in highly capitated practice environments had the lowest risk adjusted spending per beneficiary, whereas those receiving just productivity payments had the highest spending. These physicians also had lower intensity of care for episodes of care. CONCLUSIONS: Physicians in highly capitated practices had the lowest total costs and intensity of care, suggesting that these physicians develop an overall approach to care that also applies to their FFS patients.

Association between quality of care and the sociodemographic composition of physicians' patient panels: a repeat cross-sectional analysis.

BACKGROUND: Pay-for-performance programs could worsen health disparities if providers who care for disadvantaged patients face systematic barriers to providing high-quality care. Risk adjustment that includes sociodemographic factors could mitigate the financial incentive to avoid disadvantaged patients. OBJECTIVE: To test for associations between quality of care and the composition of a physician's patient panel. DESIGN: Repeat cross-sectional analysis PARTICIPANTS: Nationally representative sample of US primary care physicians responding to a panel telephone survey in 2000-2001 and 2004-2005 MAIN MEASURES: Quality of primary care as measured by provision of eight recommended preventive services (diabetic monitoring [hemoglobin A1c testing, eye examinations, cholesterol testing and urine protein analysis], cancer screening [screening colonoscopy/sigmoidoscopy and mammography], and vaccinations against influenza and pneumococcus) documented in Medicare claims data and the association between quality and the sociodemographic composition of physicians' patient panels. KEY RESULTS: Across eight quality measures, physicians' quality of care was not consistently associated with the composition of their patient panel either in a single year or between time periods. For example, a substantial number (seven) of the eighteen significant associations seen between sociodemographic characteristics and the delivery of preventive services in the first time period were no longer seen in the second time period. Among sociodemographic characteristics, panel Medicaid eligibility was most consistently associated with differences in the delivery of preventive services between time points; among preventive services, the delivery of influenza vaccine was most likely to demonstrate disparities in both time points. CONCLUSIONS: In a Medicare pay-for-performance program, a better understanding of the effect of effect of patient panel composition on physicians' quality of care may be necessary before implementing routine statistical adjustment, since the association of quality and sociodemographic composition is small and inconsistent. In addition, we observed improvements between time periods among physicians with varying panel composition.

The roles of practice systems and individual effort in quality performance.

INTRODUCTION: Individual effort and practice systems contribute to quality performance, but the nature of their contributions remains unclear. METHODS: This study assessed the roles of individual attributes and behaviours versus practice attributes in quality performance by assessing general internists' perceptions of factors that drive their engagement in quality improvement (QI). The authors interviewed 20 physicians in two distinct categories from diverse practice settings who had the greatest discordance between their ranked scores on standardised measures of individual quality performance and practice 'systems' performance. RESULTS: Findings suggest that there are subtle but important differences between high-scoring physicians practising in low-scoring practice systems, and low-scoring physicians practising in high-scoring practice systems with regards to quality performance and improvement. Physicians with high individual and low systems scores contributed a greater individual effort in quality improvement (QI), exhibited greater internal drivers to change, and reported a greater number and broader list of QI activities than physicians with low individual scores and high systems scores. Physicians with high individual scores also tended to be more reflective. There was a lack of consensus between categories on the relative usefulness of different systems resources, including electronic information systems. Our findings also suggest that physicians practice in isolation and autonomously, and highly independent of each other, and perceive a tension between pursuing technical quality and patient satisfaction at the same time. Both categories were skeptical of performance measurement more generally. CONCLUSION: QI efforts may be more effective if they foster both specific individual attitudes and capabilities, as well as improve practice-level systems.

Good neighbors: how will the patient-centered medical home relate to the rest of the health-care delivery system?

Recent policy focus on models of the patient-centered medical home raises questions about how medical home practices will relate to the rest of the health-care delivery system. This paper presents a conceptual framework of how patients and clinicians might interact in a medical neighborhood; outlines key features of a neighborhood and incentives for medical neighbors to participate in care coordination; identifies the policy considerations in designing neighborhoods; and puts forth a research agenda to support the development and evaluation of medical neighborhoods.

Primary care: current problems and proposed solutions.

In 2005, approximately 400,000 people provided primary medical care in the United States. About 300,000 were physicians, and another 100,000 were nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Yet primary care faces a growing crisis, in part because increasing numbers of U.S. medical graduates are avoiding careers in adult primary care. Sixty-five million Americans live in what are officially deemed primary care shortage areas, and adults throughout the United States face difficulty obtaining prompt access to primary care. A variety of strategies are being tried to improve primary care access, even without a large increase in the primary care workforce.

Physician ownership of medical equipment.

This Data Bulletin presents findings from the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) 2008 Health Tracking Physician Survey, a nationally rep­resentative mail survey of U.S. physicians providing at least 20 hours per week of direct patient care. The sample of physicians was drawn from the American Medical Association master file and included active, nonfederal, office- and hospital-based physicians. Residents and fellows were excluded, as well as radiologists, anesthesiologists and pathologists. The survey includes responses from more than 4,700 phy­sicians, and the response rate was 62 percent. Since this Data Bulletin examines the extent of physician practice ownership or leasing of medical equipment, the sample was limited to 2,750 physicians practic­ing in community-based, physician-owned practices, who represent 58 percent of all physicians surveyed. Physicians employed by hospitals, who practiced in hospital-based settings or who worked in hospital-owned practices were excluded.

Are electronic medical records helpful for care coordination? Experiences of physician practices.

BACKGROUND: Policies promoting widespread adoption of electronic medical records (EMRs) are premised on the hope that they can improve the coordination of care. Yet little is known about whether and how physician practices use current EMRs to facilitate coordination. OBJECTIVES: We examine whether and how practices use commercial EMRs to support coordination tasks and identify work-around practices have created to address new coordination challenges. DESIGN, SETTING: Semi-structured telephone interviews in 12 randomly selected communities. PARTICIPANTS: Sixty respondents, including 52 physicians or staff from 26 practices with commercial ambulatory care EMRs in place for at least 2 years, chief medical officers at four EMR vendors, and four national thought leaders. RESULTS: Six major themes emerged: (1) EMRs facilitate within-office care coordination, chiefly by providing access to data during patient encounters and through electronic messaging; (2) EMRs are less able to support coordination between clinicians and settings, in part due to their design and a lack of standardization of key data elements required for information exchange; (3) managing information overflow from EMRs is a challenge for clinicians; (4) clinicians believe current EMRs cannot adequately capture the medical decision-making process and future care plans to support coordination; (5) realizing EMRs' potential for facilitating coordination requires evolution of practice operational processes; (6) current fee-for-service reimbursement encourages EMR use for documentation of billable events (office visits, procedures) and not of care coordination (which is not a billable activity). CONCLUSIONS: There is a gap between policy-makers' expectation of, and clinical practitioners' experience with, current electronic medical records' ability to support coordination of care. Policymakers could expand current health information technology policies to support assessment of how well the technology facilitates tasks necessary for coordination. By reforming payment policy to include care coordination, policymakers could encourage the evolution of EMR technology to include capabilities that support coordination, for example, allowing for inter-practice data exchange and multi-provider clinical decision support.

Medicare governance and provider payment policy.

Medicare's decision-making processes leave policies on provider payment vulnerable to "micromanagement" by Congress and the White House. If they continue as they are, they could jeopardize delivery system changes central to current health reform proposals. Ad hoc intervention in response to pressure from narrow interests can result in policies that do not serve the broader priorities of beneficiaries and taxpayers and that are unsound economically. Establishing a new Medicare policy board, as proposed by the Obama administration and Congress; transforming the Medicare agency into an independent agency or new department; and conducting analyses of congressionally proposed payment policy changes before they are voted on could further insulate payment decisions from political interference.

Rapidity and modality of imaging for acute low back pain in elderly patients.

BACKGROUND: Most quality metrics focus on underuse of services, leaving unclear what factors are associated with potential overuse. METHODS: We analyzed Medicare claims from 2000-2002 and 2004-2006 for 35 039 fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries with acute low back pain (LBP) who were treated by 1 of 4567 primary care physicians responding to the 2000-2001 or 2004-2005 Community Tracking Study Physician Surveys. We modified a measure of inappropriate imaging developed by the National Committee on Quality Assurance. We characterized the rapidity (<28 days, 29-180 days, none within 180 days) and modality of imaging (computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging [CT/MRI], only radiograph, or no imaging). We used ordered logit models to assess relationships between imaging and patient demographics and physician/practice characteristics including exposure to financial incentives based on patient satisfaction, clinical quality, cost profiling, or productivity. RESULTS: Of 35 039 beneficiaries with LBP, 28.8% underwent imaging within 28 days and an additional 4.6% between 28 and 180 days. Among patients who received imaging, 88.2% received radiography, while 11.8% received CT/MRI as their initial study. White patients received higher levels of imaging than black patients or those of other races. Medicaid patients received less rapid or advanced imaging than other patients. Patients had higher levels of imaging if their primary care physician worked in large practices. Compared with no incentives, clinical quality-based incentives were associated with less advanced imaging (10.5% vs 1.4% for within 28 days; P < .001), whereas incentive combinations including satisfaction measures were associated with more rapid and advanced imaging. Results persisted in multivariate analyses and when the outcome was redefined as the number of imaging studies performed. CONCLUSIONS: Rapidity and modality of imaging for LBP is associated with patient and physician characteristics but the directionality of associations with desirable care processes is opposite of associations for measures targeting underuse. Metrics that encompass overuse may suggest new areas of focus for quality improvement.

General hospitals, specialty hospitals and financially vulnerable patients.

In the past decade, the rapid growth of specialty hospitals focused on profitable service lines, including cardiac and orthopedic care, has prompted concerns about general hospitals' ability to compete. Critics contend specialty hospitals actively draw less-complicated, more-profitable patients with Medicare and private insurance away from general hospitals, threatening general hospitals' ability to cross-subsidize less-profitable services and provide uncompensated care. A contentious debate has ensued, but little research has addressed whether specialty hospitals adversely affect the financial viability of general hospitals and their ability to care for low-income, uninsured and Medicaid patients. Despite initial challenges recruiting staff and maintaining service volumes and patient referrals, general hospitals were generally able to respond to the initial entry of specialty hospitals with few, if any, changes in the provision of care for financially vulnerable patients, according to a new study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) of three markets with established specialty hospitals--Indianapolis, Phoenix and Little Rock, Arkansas. In addition, safety net hospitals--general hospitals that care for a disproportionate share of financially vulnerable patients--reported limited impact from specialty hospitals since safety net hospitals generally do not compete for insured patients.