Studies from University of Southern California Further Understanding of Managed Care (Impact of Consumer-Directed Health Plans on Low-Value…

Insurance Weekly News

Studies from University of Southern California Further Understanding of Managed Care (Impact of Consumer-Directed Health Plans on Low-Value Healthcare)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- Current study results on Managed Care have been published. According to news reporting from Los Angeles, California, by VerticalNews journalists, research stated, "To assess the impact of consumer-directed health plan (CDHP) enrollment on low-value healthcare spending. We performed a quasi-experimental analysis using insurance claims data from 376,091 patients aged 18 to 63 years continuously enrolled in a plan from a large national commercial insurer from 2011 to 2013."

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from the University of Southern California, "We measured spending on 26 low-value healthcare services that offer unclear or no clinical benefit. Employing a difference-in-differences approach, we compared the change in spending on low-value services for patients switching from a traditional health plan to a CDHP with the change in spending on low-value services for matched patients remaining in a traditional plan. Switching to a CDHP was associated with a $231.60 reduction in annual outpatient spending (95% CI, -$341.65 to -$121.53); however, no significant reductions were observed in annual spending on the 26 low-value services (-$3.64; 95% CI, -$9.60 to $2.31) or on these low-value services relative to overall outpatient spending (-$7.86 per $10,000 in outpatient spending; 95% CI, -$18.43 to $2.72). Similarly, a small reduction was noted for low-value spending on imaging (-$1.76; 95% CI, -$3.39 to -$0.14), but not relative to overall imaging spending, and no significant reductions were noted in low-value laboratory spending."

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: "CDHPs in their current form may represent too blunt an instrument to specifically curtail low-value healthcare spending."

For more information on this research see: Impact of Consumer-Directed Health Plans on Low-Value Healthcare. American Journal of Managed Care, 2017;23(12):741-748,156-166. 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 journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting N. Sood, Univ Southern Calif, Dept. of Hlth Policy & Management, Sol Price Sch Public Policy, Los Angeles, CA 90089, United States. Additional authors for this research include B. Rabideau and R.O. Reid.

Keywords for this news article include: Los Angeles, California, United States, North and Central America, Health and Medicine, Managed Care, University of Southern California.