There is considerable data showing that disparities in payment across sites of service increase costs to patients, insurers and taxpayers as well as result in marketplace consolidation that limits patient choice by reducing access to care in the community-setting.
Medicare expenditures for HOPD services have grown rapidly in recent years. Some policymakers have raised questions about whether this growth may be attributed to services that were typically performed in physician offices shifting to HOPDs. GAO was asked to examine trends in vertical consolidation and its effects on Medicare. This report examines, for years 2007 […]
IMPORTANCE Financial integration between physicians and hospitals may help health care provider organizations meet the challenges of new payment models but also may enhance the bargaining power of provider organizations, leading to higher prices and spending in commercial health care markets. OBJECTIVE To assess the association between recent increases in physician-hospital integration and changes in […]
In this paper, we estimate how hospital ownership of physicians’ practices affects their patients’ hospital choices. We match data on the hospital admissions of Medicare beneficiaries, including the identity of their admitting physician, with data on the identity of the owner of the admitting physician’s practice. We find that a hospital’s ownership of an admitting […]
A cluster of innovative medicines for patients with a wide variety of tumor types and based on promising new mechanisms of action has heightened excitement about prospects for major advances in cancer treatment. The large number of potential new medicines currently in clinical development or under regulatory review suggests breakthroughs will continue and bring not […]
To control costs and reward efficiency, Medicare pays the majority of hospitals under PPSs, which make payments on the basis of the clinical classification of each service. In response to concerns that cancer hospitals would experience payment reductions under a PPS, beginning in 1983, Congress required the establishment of criteria under which 11 PCHs are […]
Average hospital outpatient department prices for common imaging, colonoscopy and laboratory services can be double the price for identical services provided in a physician’s office or other community-based setting, according to a study by researchers at the former Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). Using private insurance claims data for about 590,000 active and […]
Two independent trends, acting in combination, are currently resulting in increased Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) chemotherapy payments. The first trend is a shift in the site of care for cancer patients from physicians’ offices to hospital outpatient departments. Several factors contribute to this shift; this study evaluates the effects of one of those factors —the acquisition […]
Cancer remains a top priority for health systems around the world as incidence levels rise, fueled by growing and aging populations. While some incidence is preventable and early diagnosis and treatment can reduce or delay mortality significantly the reality is that countries struggle to bring together the right combination of measures including vaccines, diagnostics and […]
The Physician-based Oncology Practice Acquisition study has three objectives: – Understand historical trends in physician-based oncology practice acquisitions by entities participating in the 340B program (“Covered Entities”) – Measure impact of such acquisitions on 340B chargebacks – Compare timing of such acquisitions with the registration date on the OPA database as a sub-entity of the […]
In a prior memorandum, we presented evidence documenting the growing share of Medicare oncology volume being billed in the outpatient hospital setting, in comparison to the physician office setting. In this report, we present our assessment of the cost consequences to the Medicare program of patients receiving chemotherapy services in physician offices versus hospital outpatient […]
