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B A Virnig

Publications and source records attributed to B A Virnig.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

Do Medicare HMOs and Medicare FFS differ in their use of the Medicare hospice benefit?

This study compares use of the hospice benefit in Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) and Medicare risk-health maintenance organization (HMO) options in South Florida in 1992. A higher percentage of deaths occurred in hospice in the HMO option than in the FFS option. Compared to individuals in the FFS option, HMO-enrolled hospice users had longer lengths of hospice stay, lower 7-day mortality and higher 180-day (6 month) survival. These differences are consistent with the physician's financial incentives associated with the two programs.

Aged↗
PubMed1998

Medicare HMOs: who joins and who leaves?

Medicare risk health maintenance organizations (HMOs) are an increasingly common alternative to fee-for-service Medicare. To date, there has been no examination of whether the HMO program is preferentially used by blacks or by persons living in lower-income areas or whether race and income are associated with reversing Medicare HMO selection. This question is important because evidence suggests that these beneficiaries receive poorer care under the fee-for-service-system than do whites and persons from wealthier areas. Medicare enrollment data from South Florida were examined for 1990 to 1993. Four overlapping groups of enrollees were examined: all age-eligible (age 65 and over) beneficiaries in 1990; all age-eligible beneficiaries in 1993; all age-eligible beneficiaries residing in South Florida during the period 1990 to 1993; and all beneficiaries who became age-eligible for Medicare benefits between 1990 and 1993. The associations between race or income and choice of Medicare option were examined by logistic regression. The association between the demographic characteristics and time staying with a particular option was examined with Kaplan-Meier methods and Cox Proportional Hazards modeling. Enrollment in Medicare risk HMOs steadily increased over the 4-year study period. In the overall Medicare population, the following statistically significant patterns of enrollment in Medicare HMOs were seen: enrollment of blacks was two times higher than that of non-blacks; enrollment decreased with age; and enrollment decreased as income level increased. For the newly eligible population, initial selection of Medicare option was strongly linked to income; race effects were weak but statistically significant. The data for disenrollment from an HMO revealed a similar demographic pattern. At 6 months, higher percentages of blacks, older beneficiaries (older than 85), and individuals from the lowest income area (less than $15,000 per year) had disenrolled. A small percentage of beneficiaries moved between HMOs and FFS plans multiple times. These data on Medicare HMO populations in South Florida, an area with a high concentration of elderly individuals and with one of the highest HMO enrollment rates in the country, indicate that enrollment into and disenrollment from Medicare risk HMOs are associated with certain demographic characteristics, specifically, black race or residence in a low-income area.

Aged↗
PubMed1997

Treatment and health outcomes of women and men in a cohort with coronary artery disease.

BACKGROUND: Women with coronary artery disease are treated differently than men. Although mortality has been studied, functional outcomes for women and men have not been prospectively compared. METHODS: The Manitoba Health Reform Impact Study used hospital databases to identify all residents aged 45 years and older in Manitoba who were hospitalized for a myocardial infarction between October 1, 1991, and September 30, 1992. Cohort members were interviewed twice, an average of 16 and 25 months after hospitalization. Baseline and follow-up measures included treatments (eg, physician visits, diagnostic testing, revascularization, and cardiac medications), physical health status (physical component summary [PCS] score derived from the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36), reinfarction, and mortality. RESULTS: Of the 820 patients who completed the initial survey, 31 died during the follow-up period, and 734 completed the follow-up survey. Data were complete for the primary outcome (PCS score) and all relevant covariates for the 677 patients who were included in this study Women constituted 34% of this cohort. Although women had more physician visits during follow-up, they were less likely to have undergone treadmill testing or angiography (odds ratio, 0.68; 95% confidence interval, 0.46-0.99). Women were equally likely to report taking beta-adrenergic blocking agents, but were less likely than men to report the use of aspirin (odds ratio, 0.69; 95% confidence interval, 0.48-0.98). After adjusting for baseline differences in PCS scores, age, income, social supports, and the levels of angina and dyspnea, the PCS score for women declined by 1.4 points, while the score for men improved by 0.2 points (P = .03). During the follow-up period, reinfarction and mortality rates were low overall, but were not different in men and women. CONCLUSIONS: In this cohort of patients with known coronary artery disease, we found less aggressive treatment of coronary artery disease and less use of aspirin among women than among men during 1 year of observation. After controlling for baseline differences, women with coronary artery disease experienced a more rapid decline in physical health status than did men during 1 year of follow-up.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1997

The Medicare-HMO revolving door--the healthy go in and the sick go out.

BACKGROUND: Enrollment in Medicare health maintenance organizations (HMOs) is encouraged because of the expectation that HMOs can help slow the growth of Medicare costs. However, Medicare HMOs, which are paid 95 percent of average yearly fee-for-service Medicare expenditures, are increasingly believed to benefit from the selective enrollment of healthier Medicare recipients. Furthermore, whether sicker patients are more likely to disenroll from Medicare HMOs, thus raising average fee-for-service costs, is not clear. METHODS: We used Medicare enrollment and inpatient billing records for southern Florida from 1990 through 1993 to examine differences in the use of inpatient medical services by 375,406 beneficiaries in the Medicare fee-for-service system, 48,380 HMO enrollees before enrollment, and 23,870 HMO enrollees after disenrollment. We also determined whether these differences were related to demographic characteristics and whether the pattern of use after disenrollment persisted over time. RESULTS: The rate of use of inpatient services in the HMO-enrollment group during the year before enrollment was 66 percent of the rate in the fee-for-service group, whereas the rate in the HMO-disenrollment group after disenrollment was 180 percent of that in the fee-for-service group. Beneficiaries who disenrolled from HMOs re-enrolled at about the time that their level of use dropped to that in the fee-for-service group. CONCLUSIONS: These data show marked selection biases with respect to HMO enrollment and disenrollment. These biases undermine the effectiveness of the Medicare managed-care system and highlight the need for longitudinal and population-based studies.

Aged↗
PubMed1995

Public policy governing organ and tissue procurement in the United States. Results from the National Organ and Tissue Procurement Study.

OBJECTIVE: To determine why Required Request policies, which mandate that hospitals request donation from donor-eligible families, have not resulted in increased organ procurement. SETTING: Stratified sample of 23 acute-care general hospitals in two metropolitan areas. DESIGN: Chart review identified all eligible donors in study hospitals during a 20-month period. Health care professionals who spoke with the families of eligible donors after death were interviewed to determine families' and health care providers' behaviors after patients' deaths with reference to the donation process. PARTICIPANTS: All patient deaths (n = 10,681) were reviewed, and 841 donor-eligible cases were chosen for in-depth study; 1809 health care professionals who provided care to these patients were interviewed. MEASUREMENTS: The ability of health care providers to identify donor-eligible patients, approach families about donation, and obtain families' consent to donation. RESULTS: 83% of health care professionals correctly identified donor-eligible patients. The families of donor-eligible patients were approached about donation in 73.0% of the cases. Families were more likely to be approached about organ (86.6%) donation than either tissue (69.5%) or cornea (67.3%) donation (P < 0.001). The families of organ-eligible patients were less likely to be approached if the patient was female, was on a general medical or surgical floor, or was being cared for by internists. Only 46.5% of families of eligible donors agreed to donate organs, 34.5% agreed to donate tissues, and 23.5% agreed to donate corneas. CONCLUSIONS: Although health care professionals do request that families donate, families consent to donation less frequently than was previously assumed. Empirically based education campaigns are needed so that health care professionals can improve their communication skills and so that discussion about this important issue can be stimulated among family members.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Assessing the significance of treatment effects: comments from the perspective of ethics.

The process of designing research protocols for testing treatment effects and reporting the results of such research demands both explicit and implicit value judgments. When measuring the effects of alternative treatments, those judgments can include decisions about what outcomes to measure and for which persons they should be measured, how to aggregate disparate outcomes, and how to decide whether differences are substantial enough to differentiate between treatments. Researchers and reviewers often do not acknowledge problems of this sort, and default solutions are based on common usage rather than any epistemologic justification. Acknowledging the value commitments inherent in choices about research methods should serve to increase variation in methods rather than constrain them within conventional patterns. Especially with research intended to shape policy and practice, more thoughtful choices, humility in recognizing the limits of available methods, and flexibility in establishing the thresholds for significant differences for each study seem to be justified. The choices researchers make should be documented and the reasons for those choices should be given explicitly in publications and presentations so that readers and other users of the information are enabled and expected to bear more responsibility for interpreting and applying the findings appropriately.

Ethics, Medical↗
PubMed1994

Predictors of cancer prevention attitudes and participation in cancer screening examinations.

BACKGROUND: Few current data are available regarding factors associated with participation in cancer screening examinations in the general population. METHODS: To identify factors associated with participation in cancer screening examinations, random population samples of 25- to 74-year-old men and women in six various-sized communities in three upper-Midwestern states (n = 4,915) were surveyed in 1987-1989. Multivariate-adjusted means were calculated and compared using analysis of covariance. RESULTS: Statistically significant (P < 0.05) strong predictors (other than age and sex) of ever having had a specific cancer screening test were as follows (the numbers in parentheses following each listed association are the absolute maximum differences in mean proportions among the levels of the predictors): (1) rectal examination: higher education (14%); (2) fecal occult blood testing: higher education (6%) and never smoker (5%); (3) sigmoidoscopy: higher income (7%) and higher education (6%); and (5) mammography: higher income (25%), higher education (8%), and a positive family history of breast cancer (7%). There were no strong predictors (out of nine) of ever having had a Papanicolaou smear or a breast self-examination. CONCLUSIONS: The largest differences among the population for participation in cancer screening examinations involves income and the two most expensive cancer screening tests: higher income is a strong predictor of having a mammogram and, to a lesser extent, of having a sigmoidoscopy. The most consistent predictor of participation in cancer screening examinations across all cancer screening tests is education: higher education is a predictor of having each kind of cancer screening test.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Knowledge, attitudes, and personal practices regarding prevention and early detection of cancer.

METHODS: To determine population knowledge, attitudes, and personal practices regarding prevention and early detection of cancer, random population samples of 25- to 74-year-old men and women in six various-sized communities in three upper-midwestern states (N = 4,915) were administered surveys and interviews during 1987-1989. RESULTS: Four-fifths of respondents believed cancer to be preventable. Knowledge of warning signs/symptoms of cancer and of leading causes of cancer, however, was low. Over 95% of women had had a Papanicolaou smear and a clinical breast exam or had performed a breast self-exam; 65.7% of those ages 50-65 years had had a mammogram. Among men and women ages 50-65 years, 77% had had a digital rectal exam; 52.5%, a fecal occult blood test; and 48.3%, a sigmoidoscopy. CONCLUSIONS: Conditions are favorable for an increase in mammography, including favorable attitudes toward cancer prevention, strong consensus among policy-making organizations regarding guidelines for obtaining mammograms, and high levels of adherence to these recommendations by women who have had at least their first mammogram. Challenges now include acceptance of these guidelines by physicians, mammogram affordability/availability, and demonstration of efficacious, cost-effective, and reliable colorectal/prostate cancer screening tests.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Trends in diabetes prevalence among stroke patients and the effect of diabetes on stroke survival: the Minnesota Heart Survey.

This study documented trends in the prevalence of diabetes among men and women hospitalized for acute stroke and determined the effect of diabetes on short- and long-term survival following stroke. These issues were investigated in the Minnesota Heart Survey, a population-based surveillance system that has monitored trends in stroke morbidity and mortality in the Minneapolis-St Paul metropolitan area since 1970. Clinical data were obtained from the hospital records of 50% samples of residents ages 30 to 74 years who were discharged with a diagnosis of acute stroke in 1970, 1980, and 1985. Between 1970 and 1985, the prevalence of diabetes as listed on the discharge diagnoses among stroke patients increased significantly in men (22.4% vs 10.5%; p = 0.006) and non-significantly in women (24.7% vs 15.9%; p = 0.3). During this time period, both in-hospital and 28-day case fatality rates declined in non-diabetic stroke patients but remained unchanged in stroke patients with diabetes. After controlling for the effects of age, sex, survey year, and level of consciousness, diabetes status had little effect on short-term (28-day) mortality of stroke patients, but the odds of 5-year mortality among those surviving to 1 year was 2.0 (95% Cl (1.3, 3.2)) times higher in diabetic compared to non-diabetic individuals. These findings suggest that the prevalence of diabetes has been increasing among stroke patients, and that the diabetic condition is a significant predictor of poorer long-term but not short-term survival following stroke.

Adult↗