Dataset Information

Diabetes Outpatient Care and Acute Complications Before and After High-Deductible Insurance Enrollment: A Natural Experiment for Translation in Diabetes (NEXT-D) Study.

ABSTRACT: Importance:High-deductible health plans (HDHPs) have expanded under the Affordable Care Act and are expected to play a major role in the future of US health policy. The effects of modern HDHPs on chronically ill patients and adverse outcomes are unknown. Objective:To determine the association of HDHP with high-priority diabetes outpatient care and preventable acute complications. Design, Setting, and Participants:Controlled interrupted-time-series study using a large national health insurer database from January 1, 2003, to December 31, 2012. A total of 12?084 HDHP members with diabetes, aged 12 to 64 years, who were enrolled for 1 year in a low-deductible (?$500) plan followed by 2 years in an HDHP (?$1000) after an employer-mandated switch were included. Patients transitioning to HDHPs were propensity-score matched with contemporaneous patients whose employers offered only low-deductible coverage. Low-income (n?=?4121) and health savings account (HSA)-eligible (n?=?1899) patients with diabetes were subgroups of interest. Data analysis was performed from February 23, 2015, to September 11, 2016. Exposures:Employer-mandated HDHP transition. Main Outcomes and Measures:High-priority outpatient visits, disease monitoring tests, and outpatient and emergency department visits for preventable acute diabetes complications. Results:In the 12?084 HDHP members included after the propensity score match, the mean (SD) age was 50.4 (10.0) years; 5410 of the group (44.8%) were women. The overall, low-income, and HSA-eligible diabetes HDHP groups experienced increases in out-of-pocket medical expenditures of 49.4% (95% CI, 40.3% to 58.4%), 51.7% (95% CI, 38.6% to 64.7%), and 67.8% (95% CI, 47.9% to 87.8%), respectively, compared with controls in the year after transitioning to HDHPs. High-priority primary care visits and disease monitoring tests did not change significantly in the overall HDHP cohort; however, high-priority specialist visits declined by 5.5% (95% CI, -9.6% to -1.5%) in follow-up year 1 and 7.1% (95% CI, -11.5% to -2.7%) in follow-up year 2 vs baseline. Outpatient acute diabetes complication visits were delayed in the overall and low-income HDHP cohorts at follow-up (adjusted hazard ratios, 0.94 [95% CI, 0.88 to 0.99] for the overall cohort and 0.89 [95% CI, 0.81 to 0.98] for the low-income cohort). Annual emergency department acute complication visits among HDHP members increased by 8.0% (95% CI, 4.6% to 11.4%) in the overall group, 21.7% (95% CI, 14.5% to 28.9%) in the low-income group, and 15.5% (95% CI, 10.5% to 20.6%) in the HSA-eligible group. Conclusions and Relevance:Patients with diabetes experienced minimal changes in outpatient visits and disease monitoring after an HDHP switch, but low-income and HSA-eligible HDHP members experienced major increases in emergency department visits for preventable acute diabetes complications.

SUBMITTER: Wharam JF

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5538022 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Diabetes Outpatient Care and Acute Complications Before and After High-Deductible Insurance Enrollment: A Natural Experiment for Translation in Diabetes (NEXT-D) Study.

Wharam J Frank JF Zhang Fang F Eggleston Emma M EM Lu Christine Y CY Soumerai Stephen S Ross-Degnan Dennis D

JAMA internal medicine 20170301 3

<h4>Importance</h4>High-deductible health plans (HDHPs) have expanded under the Affordable Care Act and are expected to play a major role in the future of US health policy. The effects of modern HDHPs on chronically ill patients and adverse outcomes are unknown.<h4>Objective</h4>To determine the association of HDHP with high-priority diabetes outpatient care and preventable acute complications.<h4>Design, setting, and participants</h4>Controlled interrupted-time-series study using a large nation ...[more]

PMID: 28097328

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Project description:OBJECTIVE:High-deductible health plans (HDHPs) are now the predominant commercial health insurance benefit in the U.S. We sought to determine the effects of HDHPs on emergency department and hospital care, adverse outcomes, and total health care expenditures among patients with diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS:We applied a controlled interrupted time-series design to study 23,493 HDHP members with diabetes, aged 12-64, insured through a large national health insurer from 2003 to 2012. HDHP members were enrolled for 1 year in a low-deductible (?$500) plan, followed by 1 year in an HDHP (?$1,000 deductible) after an employer-mandated switch. Patients transitioning to HDHPs were matched to 192,842 contemporaneous patients whose employers offered only low-deductible coverage. HDHP members from low-income neighborhoods (n = 8,453) were a subgroup of interest. Utilization measures included emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and total (health plan plus member out-of-pocket) health care expenditures. Proxy health outcome measures comprised high-severity emergency department visit expenditures and high-severity hospitalization days. RESULTS:After the HDHP transition, emergency department visits declined by 4.0% (95% CI -7.8, -0.1), hospitalizations fell by 5.6% (-10.8, -0.5), direct (nonemergency department-based) hospitalizations declined by 11.1% (-16.6, -5.6), and total health care expenditures dropped by 3.8% (-4.3, -3.4). Adverse outcomes did not change in the overall HDHP cohort, but members from low-income neighborhoods experienced 23.5% higher (18.3, 28.7) high-severity emergency department visit expenditures and 27.4% higher (15.5, 39.2) high-severity hospitalization days. CONCLUSIONS:After an HDHP switch, direct hospitalizations declined by 11.1% among patients with diabetes, likely driving 3.8% lower total health care expenditures. Proxy adverse outcomes were unchanged in the overall HDHP population with diabetes, but members from low-income neighborhoods experienced large, concerning increases in high-severity emergency department visit expenditures and hospitalization days.

Project description:OBJECTIVE:High-deductible health plans (HDHPs) have become the predominant commercial health insurance arrangement in the US. HDHPs require substantial out-of-pocket (OOP) costs for most services but often exempt medications from high cost sharing. We examined effects of HDHPs on OOP costs and utilization of adjuvant hormonal therapy (AHT), which are fundamental care for patients with breast cancer. METHODS:This controlled quasi-experimental study used claims data (2003-2012) from a large national health insurer. We included 986 women with incident early-stage breast cancer, age 25-64 years, insured by employers that mandated a transition from low-deductible (??$500/year) to high-deductible (??$1000/year) coverage, and 3479 propensity score-matched controls whose employers offered only low-deductible plans. We examined AHT utilization and OOP costs per person-year before and after the HDHP switch. RESULTS:At baseline, the OOP costs for AHT were $40.41 and $36.55 per person-year among the HDHP and control groups. After the HDHP switch, the OOP costs for AHT were $91.76 and $72.98 per person-year among the HDHP and control groups, respectively. AHT OOP costs increased among HDHP members relative to controls but the change was not significant (relative change 13.72% [95% CI -?9.25, 36.70%]). AHT use among HDHP members did not change compared to controls (relative change of 2.73% [95% CI -?14.01, 19.48%]); the change in aromatase inhibitor use was -?11.94% (95% CI -?32.76, 8.88%) and the change in tamoxifen use was 20.65% (95% CI -?8.01, 49.32%). CONCLUSION:We did not detect significant changes in AHT use after the HDHP switch. Findings might be related to modest increases in overall AHT OOP costs, the availability of low-cost generic tamoxifen, and patient awareness that AHT can prolong life and health. Minimizing OOP cost increases for essential medications might represent a feasible approach for maintaining medication adherence among HDHP members with incident breast cancer.

Project description:BackgroundHealth insurance enrollment is a difficult financial decision with large health impacts. Challenges such as low health insurance literacy and lack of knowledge about choosing a plan further complicate this decision-making process. Therefore, to support consumers in their choice of a health insurance plan, it is essential to understand how individuals go about making this decision.ObjectiveThis study aims to understand the sources of information used by individuals to support their employer-provided health insurance enrollment decisions. It seeks to describe how individual descriptive factors lead to choosing a particular type of information source.MethodsAn introduction was presented on health insurance plan selection and the sources of information used to support these decisions from the 1980s to the present. Subsequently, an electronic survey of 151 full-time faculty and staff members was conducted. The survey consisted of four sections: demographics, sources of information, health insurance literacy, and technology acceptance. Descriptive statistics were used to show the demographic characteristics of the 126 eligible respondents and to study the response behaviors in the remaining survey sections. Proportion data analysis was performed using the Cochran-Armitage trend test to understand the strength of the association between our variables and the types of sources used by the respondents.ResultsIn terms of demographics, most of the respondents were women (103/126, 81.7%), represented a small household (1-2 persons; 87/126, 69%), and used their insurance 3-12 times a year (52/126, 41.3%). They assessed themselves as having moderate to high health insurance literacy and high acceptance of technology. The most selected and top-ranked sources were Official employer or state websites and Official Human Resources Virtual Benefits Counselor Alex. From our data analysis, we found that the use of official primary sources was constant across age groups and health insurance use groups. Meanwhile, the use of friends or family as a primary source slightly decreased as age and use increased.ConclusionsIn this exploratory study, we identified the main sources of health insurance information among full-time employees from a large state university and found that most of the respondents needed 2-3 sources to gather all the information that they desired. We also studied and identified the relationships between individual factors (such as age, gender, and literacy) and 2 dependent variables on the types of primary sources of information. We encountered several limitations, which will be addressed in future studies.

Dataset Information

Diabetes Outpatient Care and Acute Complications Before and After High-Deductible Insurance Enrollment: A Natural Experiment for Translation in Diabetes (NEXT-D) Study.

Publications

Diabetes Outpatient Care and Acute Complications Before and After High-Deductible Insurance Enrollment: A Natural Experiment for Translation in Diabetes (NEXT-D) Study.

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