November 2013

Patients using mail order pharmacies have lower healthcare utilization, but somewhat less laboratory monitoring of persistent medications and slightly higher contraindicated medication use.

For-profit status was found to influence the probability of upcoding for inpatient cases involving non-life-threatening injuries with implications for Medicaid and other insurers.

A methodologically sound, empirically based approach to creating peer groupings can and should be adapted to fit the setting of nursing homes.

Automated patient support calls with feedback to informal caregivers and clinicians represent a viable strategy for increasing access to depression monitoring and self-management assistance.

A large proportion of opioid analgesic treated chronic pain patients exhibited behaviors indicative of potentially problematic opioid use, which significantly affected healthcare costs.

The Perfect Depression Care initiative serves as an example of how suicide prevention programs can collect real-time mortality data internally to drive rapid quality improvement.

Medicare payment reforms require valid measures of high-quality healthcare. Different types of administrative wait time measures predicted glycated hemoglobin levels for new and returning patients.

Service quality (appointment lags and wait times) of primary care physician practices varies tremendously across the country and is associated with the organization of practices.