Findings in the Area of Diabetes Reported from University of Michigan (Does Medicare Managed Care Reduce Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Diabetes…

Findings in the Area of Diabetes Reported from University of Michigan (Does Medicare Managed Care Reduce Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Diabetes Preventive Care and Healthcare Expenditures?)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- Research findings on Diabetes are discussed in a new report. According to news reporting originating in Ann Arbor, Michigan, by VerticalNews journalists, research stated, "Large and persistent racial/ethnic disparities exist in diabetes care. Considering the rapid rate of growth of Medicare Managed Care (MMC) plans among minority populations, our aim was to investigate whether disparities in diabetes management and healthcare expenditures are smaller in MMC versus Medicare fee-for-service (MFFS) plans."

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from the University of Michigan, "We hypothesized that racial/ethnic disparities in diabetes care and in health expenditures would be less pronounced in MMC compared with MFFS plans. Nationally representative data from the 2006 to 2011 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey on white, African American, and Hispanic seniors with diabetes were analyzed. We examined 4 measures of diabetes care-regular foot check, eye exam, cholesterol check, and flu vaccine-and total and out-of-pocket (OOP) healthcare expenditures. We implemented the Institute of Medicine's definition of disparity, applied propensity score weighting to adjust for potential differential selection, and used a difference-in-differences generalized linear framework to estimate outcome measures. For African Americans, MMC was associated with a $1183 (P <.036) reduction and a $547 (P <.001) increase in disparities in total and OOP healthcare expenditures, respectively. For Hispanics, disparities in foot exam, flu shot, and cholesterol check decreased by 5, 10, and 7 percentage points (P <.001); additionally, disparities in total and OOP healthcare expenditures were reduced by $ 3588 and $ 276 (P <.001), respectively. MMC plans spend less on everyone, including whites. Hispanic/white disparities in diabetes management and healthcare expenditures were smaller in MMC than in MFFS plans."

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: "African American/white disparities were not consistently larger in 1 setting than the other."

For more information on this research see: Does Medicare Managed Care Reduce Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Diabetes Preventive Care and Healthcare Expenditures? American Journal of Managed Care, 2016;22(10):E360-E367,45-53. American Journal of Managed Care can be contacted at: Managed Care & Healthcare Communications Llc, 666 Plainsboro Rd, Ste 300, Plainsboro, NJ 08536, USA.

Our news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained by contacting E. Mahmoudi, University of Michigan, Sch Med, Sect Plast Surg, Ann Arbor, MI, United States. Additional authors for this research include W. Tarraf, B.L. Maroukis and H.G. Levy.

Keywords for this news article include: Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States, North and Central America, Managed Care, Health Policy, Medicare, Diabetes, University of Michigan.

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