BACKGROUNDIt is widely known that outcomes after cancer surgery vary widely, depending on interactions between patient, tumor, neoadjuvant therapy, and provider factors. Within this complex milieu, the influence of complications on the cost of surgical oncology care remains unknown. The authors examined rates of Patient Safety Indicator (PSI) occurrence for 6 cancer operations and their association with costs of care.METHODSThe Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) PSI definitions were used to identify patient safety-related complications in Medicare claims data. Hospital and inpatient physician claims for the years 2005 through 2009 were analyzed for 6 cancer resections: colectomy, rectal resection, pulmonary lobectomy, pneumonectomy, esophagectomy, and pancreatic resection. Risk-adjusted regression analyses were used to measure the association between each PSI and hospitalization costs.RESULTSOverall PSI rates ranged from a low of 0.01% for postoperative hip fracture to a high of 2.58% for respiratory failure. Death among inpatients with serious treatable complications, postoperative respiratory failure, postoperative thromboembolism, and accidental puncture/laceration were >1% for all 6 cancer operations. Several PSIs—including decubitus ulcer, death among surgical inpatients with serious treatable complications, and postoperative thromboembolism—raised hospitalization costs by ≥20% for most cancer surgery types. Postoperative respiratory failure resulted in a cost increase >50% for all cancer resections.CONCLUSIONSThe consistently higher costs associated with cancer surgery PSIs indicate that substantial health care savings could be achieved by targeting these indicators for quality improvement.
Provider organizations are increasing in complexity, as hospitals acquire physician practices and physician organizations grow in size. At the same time, hospitals are merging with each other to improve bargaining power with insurers. We analyze 29 quality measures reported to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Hospital Compare database for 2008 to 2015 to test whether vertical integration between hospitals and physicians or increases in hospital market concentration influence patient outcomes. Vertical integration has a limited effect on a small subset of quality measures. Yet increased market concentration is strongly associated with reduced quality across all 10 patient satisfaction measures at the 95% confidence level (p < .05) and 6 of the 10 patient satisfaction measures remain statistically significant with a Bonferroni corrected p value (p < .005). Regulators should continue to focus scrutiny on proposed hospital mergers, take steps to maintain competition, and reduce counterproductive barriers to entry.
BACKGROUND: Recent studies that compared patient spending in hospital-owned physician practices versus physician-owned groups did not compare quality of care. Past studies had incomplete measures of physicianhospital integration, or lacked patient-level data. OBJECTIVE: To measure the association between physician-hospital integration and both spending and quality using patient-level data and explicit physicianhospital contracting information. DESIGN: Retrospective review of claims data from 2014 through 2016. Adjustments were made for patient, physician, and regional characteristics. PATIENTS: Patients aged 19 to 64 enrolled in a Blue Cross Blue Shield Texas Preferred Provider Organization in the four largest metropolitan areas in Texas who could be attributed to a physician practice based on claims. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Annual spending per patient was compared for patients treated by a physician practice that is billing through a hospital, versus billing through an independent physician practice; spending was also subdivided by BETOS category, by site and type of care, and percent of patients with positive spending by subcategory. Quality measures included readmission within 30 days of discharge for hospitalized patients, appropriate care for diabetic patients, and screening mammography for women ages 50-64. RESULTS: Estimates suggest that patients in a preferred provider organization incur spending which is 5.8 percentage points higher when treated by doctors in hospital-owned versus physician-owned practices (95% CI 1.7 to 9.9; p = 0.006). Spending is significantly higher for durable medical equipment, imaging, unclassified services, and outpatient care. The spending difference appears attributable to greater service utilization rather than higher prices. There was no consistent difference in care quality for hospital-owned versus physician-owned practices. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: We find that financial integration between physicians and hospitals raises patient spending, but not care quality. Given that higher spending raises the price of health insurance, policy makers should carefully consider policies that limit consolidation of hospitals and physicians.
Multiple studies claim that public place smoking bans are associated with reductions in smoking-related hospitalization rates. No national study using complete hospitalization counts by area that accounts for contemporaneous controls including state cigarette taxes has been conducted. We examine the association between county-level smoking-related hospitalization rates and comprehensive smoking bans in 28 states from 2001 to 2008. Differences-in-differences analysis measures changes in hospitalization rates before versus after introducing bans in bars, restaurants, and workplaces, controlling for cigarette taxes, adjusting for local health and provider characteristics. Smoking bans were not associated with acute myocardial infarction or heart failure hospitalizations, but lowered pneumonia hospitalization rates for persons ages 60 to 74 years. Higher cigarette taxes were associated with lower heart failure hospitalizations for all ages and fewer pneumonia hospitalizations for adults aged 60 to 74. Previous studies may have overestimated the relation between smoking bans and hospitalizations and underestimated the effects of cigarette taxes.
Although use of cancer procedures was similar in CON and non-CON states, those with acute-care CON had fewer facilities performing oncologic resections per cancer patient. Correspondingly, average hospital procedure volume tended to be higher in CON states. These differences may have important implications for patient outcomes and costs.
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