Studies from University of Wisconsin Describe New Findings in Insurance (Care Transition Management and Patient Outcomes In Hospitalized Medicare Beneficiaries): Insurance

Health Policy and Law Daily

2024 DEC 24 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- Current study results on Insurance have been published. According to news originating from Madison, Wisconsin, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “To assess whether discharging hospitals’ self-reported care transition activities (CTAs) were associated with transitional care management (TCM) claims following discharge to the community and whether CTAs and TCM were associated with better patient outcomes. Cross-sectional study of 424,115 hospitalized Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries 66 years and older who were discharged to the community in 2017 and attributed to 659 hospitals in the 2017-2018 National Survey of Healthcare Organizations and Systems (response rate, 46.5%).”

Financial support for this research came from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Comparative Health System Performance Initiative.

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the University of Wisconsin, “Of these beneficiaries, 76,156 were categorized into a Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) cohort based on admission principal diagnoses. Using logistic regression, we examined the association between survey-based hospital-reported CTAs and an attributed beneficiary’s TCM claim. We assessed the associations between hospital CTAs and TCM and beneficiary spending, utilization, and mortality in linear (continuous outcomes) and logistic (binary outcomes) regressions. Beneficiaries attributed to hospitals reporting high (top tertile vs bottom tertile) CTA had a higher probability of TCM after discharge by 3 percentage points. TCM was associated with lower 90-day episode spending (-$2803; P< .001) and improved quality (-28.7 30-day readmissions/1000 beneficiaries; P< .001; -29.7 deaths/1000 beneficiaries; P< .001), and greater use of evaluation and management visits (491/1000 beneficiaries; P = .001). Billing for TCM was associated with significantly lower spending, emergency department visits, hospitalizations, readmissions, and 90-day mortality in the HRRP cohort. Significant utilization reductions were estimated for beneficiaries attributed to high-CTA hospitals.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Beyond recent increases in provider TCM compensation and relaxed billing restrictions, hospitals should be encouraged to increase CTA and to enhance care transitions to improve patient outcomes and lower spending.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Care Transition Management and Patient Outcomes In Hospitalized Medicare Beneficiaries. The American Journal of Managed Care, 2024;30(9). The American Journal of Managed Care can be contacted at: Managed Care & Healthcare Communications Llc, 666 Plainsboro Rd, Ste 300, Plainsboro, NJ 08536, USA.

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from Marietou H. Ouayogode, University of Wisconsin, School of Medicine and Public Health, Dept. of Population Health Sciences, 610 Walnut St, Madison, WI 53726, United States. Additional authors for this research include John Mullahy, Maureen A. Smith, Brianna Hardy and Ellen Meara.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.37765/ajmc.2024.89605. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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