An assessment of completeness and medical coding of Medicare Advantage hospitalizations in two national data sets.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the Encounter Data System (EDS) and Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) completeness and medical coding of Medicare Advantage hospitalizations. DATA SOURCES: FY 2016-FY 2019 data limited to hospitals paid under Medicare's Inpatient Prospective Payment System. STUDY DESIGN: Secondary data analysis. DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION METHODS: Completeness of EDS and MedPAR data was estimated using the total number of unique hospitalizations in both data sources as denominator. Deriving this denominator involved matching cases in the EDS and MedPAR by MA enrollee, discharge date, and hospital. The higher the match rate, the more informative the comparison of EDS and MedPAR medical coding of the same hospitalization. EDS and MedPAR codes were assessed for similarity on six measures of Medicare Severity Diagnosis-Related Group (MS-DRG) assignment and identical diagnosis and procedure codes. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: EDS hospitalizations' completeness increased steadily each year from 90% to 93%, driven by the 23 largest Medicare Advantage Organizations, which account for 83% of total cases. MedPAR completeness was relatively stable (89%) and benefited from 91% completeness among the largest hospitals, which are often teaching hospitals and account for 63% of MedPAR cases. By 2019, 97% of medical cases were assigned the same MS-DRG, indicating the high consistency of the severity level coding, since 98% were assigned the same base MS-DRGs, which include all severity levels for the same condition. Without chart reviews, medical cases with identical diagnosis codes increased from 87% to 92%. CONCLUSIONS: The EDS has a completeness advantage over MedPAR for studies of non-teaching disproportionate share (DSH) hospitals and individual hospitals generally. MedPAR is only slightly less complete for hospitalizations of teaching DSH hospitals and large hospitals in general. A highly consistent EDS and MedPAR medical coding of matched cases is an important finding since the matched cases are 88% of EDS and 90% of MedPAR cases.

Variation in chest pain emergency department admission rates and acute myocardial infarction and death within 30 days in the Medicare population.

OBJECTIVES: The objective was to assess the relationship between emergency department (ED) admission rates for Medicare beneficiaries with chest pain and outcomes, specifically 30-day rates of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and mortality. METHODS: Using a 20% random sample of Medicare beneficiaries in 2009, 158,295 beneficiaries with a primary diagnosis of chest pain at the conclusion of their ED visits were selected to assess outcomes based on the decision to hospitalize or discharge home. The proportions of these patients admitted to inpatient or observation status at 2,219 U.S. hospitals were calculated, adjusting for differences in patient and hospital characteristics. Both bivariate analysis and multivariable logistic regression were used to estimate the effect of the adjusted admission rates (designed to be a measure of care intensity) on patient outcomes. Other covariates in the multivariable model included patient demographics, medical conditions, and hospital utilization in the 30 days prior to the ED visits. Results from the bivariate and multivariable analyses were compared for consistency. RESULTS: The adjusted Medicare admission rate for ED patients with chest pain averaged 63% for the middle quintile of the patient sample and ranged from 38% to 81% in the lowest and highest quintiles. The multivariable model yielded estimates of 3.6 fewer cases of AMI (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.5 to 5.1 cases) and 2.8 fewer deaths (95% CI = 0.6 to 4.1 deaths) per 1,000 chest pain patients associated with an admission rate of 81% versus 38%. The estimates from the bivariate analysis were of similar magnitude. CONCLUSIONS: Considerable variation exists across U.S. hospitals in ED admission rates for Medicare patients with chest pain. Hospitals that approach admissions more conservatively (i.e., higher admission rates) in this population have lower rates of AMI and mortality.

Medicare psychiatric admissions, 1987-2004: does the past offer insights for the future?

In 2005, Medicare implemented a new prospective payment system (PPS) for inpatient psychiatric facilities (IPFs). Analysis of Medicare psychiatric inpatient claims for 1987-2004 provides insights into future experience after implementation. Growth in the under-age-sixty-five disabled population was the dominant factor driving growth in psychiatric admissions. However, from 1987 until the late 1990s, there was a noteworthy increase in the use rate among the older elderly. In the future, growth of the beneficiary population will be especially important for the elderly. How the use rate responds is likely to depend on supply responses to financial incentives inherent in Medicare payment policy.

Prospective payment for Medicare inpatient psychiatric care: assessing the alternatives.

This article reports the findings of an empirical analysis of per case and per diem models of prospective payment for Medicare inpatient psychiatric care. Quantitative measures are presented that show the improvement of a per diem model over a per case model. The research supports the viability of per diem prospective payment and identifies directions for future research that would refine current per diem models.

Prospective payment for Medicare hospital capital: Implications of the research.

The special characteristics of capital have an important effect on the cross-section variation in hospitals' capital costs. Variables reflecting capital age and financing differences perform as expected and add substantial explanatory power to capital cost models. However, even with the inclusion of these variables, the capital-cost models perform poorly compared with total-cost models. The empirical findings of this article support using the total-cost models to develop a common set of adjustment factors for capital and operating payment amounts in the Medicare prospective payment system.