Examining differences in characteristics between patients receiving primary care from nurse practitioners or physicians using Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey data and Medicare claims data

Effects of medical insurance system on the hospitalization cost of acute myocardial infarction patients

BACKGROUND

Acute myocardial infarction is still a burden on Chinese patients. Whether different medical insurance system have any influence on the hospitalization cost and therapeutic effect of acute myocardial infarction patient needs further investigation.

METHOD

In this study, 600 patients were stratified by health insurance status to investigate the cost effectiveness.

RESULT

Compared with free medical care, patients with other health insurance status have a significantly lower age (P ˂ 0.05-0.001), the youngest of which is new rural cooperative medical system. The hospital expense, nursing fee, length of stay, daily hospitalization cost, daily drug cost, daily nursing cost and percent of nursing cost of different health insurance status were statistically significant. ANCOVA analyses controlling for age showed that the differences of hospital expenses, nursing fee, length of stay and daily hospitalization cost were still statistically significant. Further studies found that health insurance status was the leading factors influencing length of stay (β = - 0.305, P = 0.0000001), nursing costs (β = - 0.319, P = 0.004), daily hospitalization costs (β = 0.296, P = 0.0001) and occurrence of clinical events (β = - 0.186, OR = 0.830, 95% CI 0.694-0.993, P = 0.041).

CONCLUSIONS

The hospitalization cost, length of stay, nursing work and therapeutic effect of acute myocardial infarction patients are affected by different health insurance status and age.

Prevalence and scope of advanced practice provider oncology care among Medicare beneficiaries with breast cancer

PURPOSE

Advanced practice providers (APPs) have increasingly become members of the oncology care team. Little is known about the scope of care that APPs are performing nationally. We determined the prevalence and extent of APP practice and examined associations between APP care and scope of practice regulations, phase of cancer care, and patient characteristics.

METHODS

We performed an observational study among women identified from Medicare claims as having had incident breast cancer in 2008 with claims through 2012. Outpatient APP care included at least one APP independently billing for cancer visits/services. APP scope of practice was classified as independent, reduced, or restricted. A logistic regression model with patient-level random effects was estimated to determine the probability of receiving APP care at any point during active treatment or surveillance.

RESULTS

Among 42,550 women, 6583 (15%) received APP care, of whom 83% had APP care during the surveillance phase and 41% during the treatment phase. Among women who received APP care during a given year of surveillance, the overall proportion of APP-billed clinic visits increased with each additional year of surveillance (36% in Year 1 to 61% in Year 4). Logistic regression model results indicate that women were more likely to receive APP care if they were younger, black, healthier, had higher income status, or lived in a rural county or state with independent APP scope of practice.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides important clinical and policy-relevant findings regarding national practice patterns of APP oncology care. Among Medicare beneficiaries with incident breast cancer, 15% received outpatient oncology care that included APPs who were billing; most of this care was during the surveillance phase. Future studies are needed to define the degree of APP oncology practice and training that maximizes patient access and satisfaction while optimizing the efficiency and quality of cancer care.

The macroeconomic benefits of Tennessee APRNs having full practice authority

BACKGROUND

To-date, advocacy efforts to advance full practice authority for APRNs have primarily stressed arguments based on evidence on the cost effectiveness and quality of APRN-provided care, as well as the improved care access and patient satisfaction these providers offer.

PURPOSE

The economic impact analysis forecasts the additional job and economic output associated with granting Tennessee APRNs full practice authority.

METHODS

The IMPLAN software and a variety of data inputs were used to estimate the direct, indirect, and induced economic impact on jobs, labor income, value-added benefits, total output, and tax revenues.

FINDINGS

From a 2017 baseline, the cumulative impact of granting Tennessee APRNs full practice authority is a net gain of 25,536 jobs and $3.2 billion in economic impact.

DISCUSSION

Granting Tennessee APRNs full practice authority would confer substantial economic benefits and employment opportunities to the state.

Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants: An Underestimated Workforce for Older Adults with Cancer

OBJECTIVES

To describe the composition of the US provider workforce for adults with cancer older than 65 years and to determine whether there were differences in patients who received care from different providers (eg, nurse practitioners [NPs], physician assistants [PAs], and specialty physicians).

DESIGN

Observational, cross-sectional study.

SETTING

Adults within the 2013 Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results cancer registries linked to the Medicare claims database.

PARTICIPANTS

Medicare beneficiaries who received ambulatory care for any solid or hematologic malignancies.

MEASUREMENTS

International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9), diagnosis codes were used to identify Medicare patient claims for malignancies in older adults. Providers for those ambulatory claims were identified using taxonomy codes associated with their National Provider Identifier number.

RESULTS

A total of 2.5 million malignancy claims were identified for 201, 237 patients, with 15, 227 providers linked to claims. NPs comprised the largest group (31.5%; n = 4,806), followed by hematology/oncology physicians (27.7%; n = 4,222), PAs (24.7%; n = 3767), medical oncologists (10.9%; n = 661), gynecological oncologists (2.6%; n = 403), and hematologists (2.4%; n = 368). Rural cancer patients were more likely to receive care from NPs (odds ratio [OR] = 1.84; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.65-2.05) or PAs (OR = 1.57; 95% CI = 1.40-1.77) than from physicians. Patients in the South were more likely to receive care from NPs (OR = 1.36; 95% CI = 1.24-1.49).

CONCLUSIONS

A large proportion of older adults with cancer receive care from NPs and PAs, particularly those who reside in rural settings and in the southern United States. Workforce strategies need to integrate these provider groups to effectively respond to the rising need for cancer care within the older adult population.