Medicare

The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was charged with setting regional market areas for the implementation of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA).

This paper expands upon previous research addressing the question of how supply of Medicare Home Health Agencies (HHAs) changed after implementation of the interim payment system (IPS) in two important ways.

Implementation of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act's home health provisions dramatically reduced Medicare home health utilization and led to closures of many agencies. This paper examined the potential effects of the agency closings on beneficiary utilization rates. Findings suggest that agency closings, per se, had only a very small impact on changes in utilization rates between 1996 and 1999.

This report compares medication use in long-term care facilities and community settings for Medicare beneficiaries with heart conditions. The purpose of this comparison was to evaluate the utility of a new file of institutional drug use in the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS), the premier source of health care information on the Medicare population.

Contents Introduction Overview of DSH Funding Policies What Is a Safety Net Hospital? How Should Financial Vulnerability Be Defined? Framework for Analyzing DSH Allocation Policies Hospital Data Set and

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Provides discussion and estimates of several Congressional proposals on prescription drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries.

This report compares the medication use of Medicare beneficiaries living in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Descriptions of Medicare use include mean number of drug mentions per month of stay (scheduled and PRN drugs), and prevalence and duration of therapy by major drug classes.

Provides discussion and estimates of several Congressional proposals on prescription drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries.

Jessica Miller, M.S., Boryana Dimitrova, M.A. and Marc Cohen, Ph.D. LifePlans, Inc. This report was prepared under contract #BPA-OS-01-0267C between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Disability, Aging and Long-Term Care Policy (DALTCP) and LifePlans, Inc.