Findings in the Area of Medicare and Medicaid Reported from Duke University (Advance care planning in Medicare: an early look at the impact of new…

Findings in the Area of Medicare and Medicaid Reported from Duke University (Advance care planning in Medicare: an early look at the impact of new reimbursement on billing and clinical practice)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Managed Care Weekly Digest -- A new study on Medicare and Medicaid is now available. According to news reporting from Durham, North Carolina, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, "In this study, we examined the US Medicare programme's (government-funded social insurance for the elderly or disabled) new reimbursement for advance care planning (ACP) that began on 1 January 2016. This single-centre study addressed whether clinicians who have ACP conversations with patients will use the new reimbursement code and if the new reimbursement is successful at motivating clinicians to have more ACP conversations with patients."

Financial support for this research came from Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (see also Medicare and Medicaid).

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from Duke University, "This is a multimethod study. To gain a general sense of ACP practice and code visibility, we first surveyed 493 clinicians in a large academic medical centre (20% response rate). Then, for more in-depth answers and to illuminate the reasons behind survey findings, we conducted semistructured interviews with 28 physicians. We found that while clinicians are open to using the reimbursement codes, organisational barriers such as low visibility and documentation make it difficult for clinicians to bill for ACP. Moreover, structural and professional factors have rendered Medicare's ACP reimbursement largely ineffective at motivating healthcare providers to perform more ACP conversations during the first 3 months of this policy. It does not appear that Medicare's reimbursement of ACP has made a significant, direct impact on ACP billing or practice during the policy's first 90 days. However, there is a symbolic role that this change can serve, and the policy could have more impact as its existence becomes more widely known."

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: "Barriers to ACP that we identify should be addressed directly to expand the use of ACP."

For more information on this research see: Advance care planning in Medicare: an early look at the impact of new reimbursement on billing and clinical practice. Bmj Supportive & Palliative Care, 2017;():. (BMJ Publishing Group - group.bmj.com/; Bmj Supportive & Palliative Care - spcare.bmj.com/)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting G. Tsai, Duke University, Duke Clinical Research Institute, Durham, North Carolina, United States.

Keywords for this news article include: Durham, United States, Health Policy, North Carolina, Medicare and Medicaid, North and Central America.

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