Dataset Information

Association of Hospital Payment Profiles With Variation in 30-Day Medicare Cost for Inpatients With Heart Failure or Pneumonia.

ABSTRACT: Importance:Some uncertainty exists about whether hospital variations in cost are largely associated with differences in case mix. Objective:To establish whether the same patients admitted with the same diagnosis (heart failure or pneumonia) at 2 different hospitals incur different costs associated with the hospital's Medicare payment profile. Design, Setting, and Participants:This observational cohort study used Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) discharge data of patients with a principal diagnosis of heart failure (n?=?1615) or pneumonia (n?=?708) occurring between July 1, 2013, and June 30, 2016. Patients were individuals aged 65 years or older who were enrolled in Medicare fee-for-service Part A and Part B and were discharged from nonfederal, short-term, acute care or critical access hospitals in the United States. Data were analyzed from March 16, 2018, to September 25, 2019. Main Outcomes and Measures:The CMS heart failure and pneumonia payment measure cohorts were divided into 2 random samples. In the first sample, hospitals were classified into payment quartiles for heart failure and pneumonia. In the second sample, patients with 2 admissions for heart failure or pneumonia, one in a lowest-quartile hospital and one in a highest-quartile hospital more than 1 month apart, were identified. Standardized Medicare payments for these patients were compared for the lowest- and the highest-quartile payment hospitals. Results:The study sample included 1615 patients with heart failure (mean [SD] age, 78.7 [8.0] years; 819 [50.7%] male) and 708 with pneumonia (mean [SD] age, 78.3 [8.0] years; 401 [56.6%] male). The observed 30-day mortality rates for patients among lowest- compared with highest-payment hospitals were not significantly different. The median (interquartile range) hospital 30-day risk-standardized mortality rates were 8.1% (7.7%-8.5%) for heart failure and 11.3% (10.7%-12.1%) for pneumonia. The 30-day episode payment for hospitalization for the same patients at the lowest-payment hospitals was $2118 (95% CI, $1168-$3068; P?

SUBMITTER: Krumholz HM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6902811 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Association of Hospital Payment Profiles With Variation in 30-Day Medicare Cost for Inpatients With Heart Failure or Pneumonia.

Krumholz Harlan M HM Wang Yongfei Y Wang Kun K Lin Zhenqiu Z Bernheim Susannah M SM Xu Xiao X Desai Nihar R NR Normand Sharon-Lise T ST

JAMA network open 20191101 11

<h4>Importance</h4>Some uncertainty exists about whether hospital variations in cost are largely associated with differences in case mix.<h4>Objective</h4>To establish whether the same patients admitted with the same diagnosis (heart failure or pneumonia) at 2 different hospitals incur different costs associated with the hospital's Medicare payment profile.<h4>Design, setting, and participants</h4>This observational cohort study used Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) discharge data ...[more]

PMID: 31730185

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Project description:OBJECTIVES:The purpose of this study was to examine the association of 30-day payments for an episode of heart failure (HF) care at the hospital level with patient outcomes. BACKGROUND:There is increased focus among policymakers on improving value for HF care, given its rising prevalence and associated financial burden in the United States; however, little is known about the relationship between payments and mortality for a 30-day episode of HF care. METHODS:Using Medicare claims data for all fee-for-service beneficiaries hospitalized for HF between July 1, 2011, and June 30, 2014, we examined the association between 30-day Medicare payments at the hospital level (beginning with a hospital admission for HF and across multiple settings following discharge) and patient 30-day mortality using mixed-effect logistic regression models. RESULTS:We included 1,343,792 patients hospitalized for HF across 2,948 hospitals. Mean hospital-level 30-day Medicare payments per beneficiary were $15,423 ± $1,523. Overall observed mortality in the cohort was 11.3%. Higher hospital-level 30-day payments were associated with lower patient mortality after adjustment for patient characteristics (odds ratio per $1,000 increase in payments: 0.961; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.954 to 0.967). This relationship was slightly attenuated after accounting for hospital characteristics and HF volume, but remained significant (odds ratio per $1,000 increase: 0.968; 95% CI: 0.962 to 0.975). Additional adjustment for potential mediating factors, including cardiac service capability and post-acute service use, did not significantly affect the relationship. CONCLUSIONS:Higher hospital-level 30-day episode payments were associated with lower patient mortality following a hospitalization for HF. This has implications for policies that incentivize reduction in payments without considering value. Further investigation is needed to understand the mechanisms that underlie this relationship.

Project description:BackgroundThe Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) penalizes hospitals for higher than expected 30-day mortality rates using methods without accounting for condition severity risk adjustment. For patients with stroke, CMS claims did not quantify stroke severity until recently, when the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) reporting began.ObjectiveExamine the predictive ability of claim-based NIHSS to predict 30-day mortality and 30-day hospital readmission in patients with ischemic stroke.DesignRetrospective cohort study of Medicare claims data.PatientsMedicare beneficiaries with ischemic stroke (N=43,241) acute hospitalization between October 2016 and November 2017.MeasurementsAll-cause 30-day mortality and 30-day hospital readmission. NIHSS score was derived from ICD-10 codes and stratified into the following: minor to moderate, moderate, moderate to severe, and severe categories.ResultsAmong 43,241 patients with ischemic stroke with NIHSS from 2,659 US hospitals, 64.6% had minor to moderate stroke, 14.3% had moderate, 12.7% had moderate to severe, and 8.5% had a severe stroke,10.1% died within 30 days, 12.1% were readmitted within 30 days. The NIHSS exhibited stronger discriminant property (C-statistic 0.83, 95% CI: 0.82-0.84) for 30-day mortality compared to Elixhauser (0.74, 95% CI: 0.73-0.75). A monotonic increase in the adjusted 30-day mortality risk occurred relative to minor to moderate stroke category: hazard ratio [HR]=2.92 (95% CI=2.59-3.29) for moderate stroke, HR=5.49 (95% CI=4.90-6.15) for moderate to severe stroke, and HR=7.82 (95% CI=6.95-8.80) for severe stroke. After accounting for competing risk of mortality, there was a significantly higher readmission risk in the moderate stroke (HR=1.11, 95% CI=1.03-1.20), but significantly lower readmission risk in the severe stroke (HR=0.84, 95% CI=0.74-0.95) categories.LimitationTiming of NIHSS reporting during hospitalization is unknown.ConclusionsMedicare claim-based NIHSS is significantly associated with 30-day mortality in Medicare patients with ischemic stroke and significantly improves discriminant property relative to the Elixhauser comorbidity index.

Dataset Information

Association of Hospital Payment Profiles With Variation in 30-Day Medicare Cost for Inpatients With Heart Failure or Pneumonia.

Publications

Association of Hospital Payment Profiles With Variation in 30-Day Medicare Cost for Inpatients With Heart Failure or Pneumonia.

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