Predictability of prescription drug expenditures for Medicare beneficiaries
UMass Chan Affiliations
Meyers Primary Care InstituteDepartment of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine
Document Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2004-05-06Keywords
AgedAged, 80 and over
Data Collection
Drug Prescriptions
Drug Utilization
Fee-for-Service Plans
Female
Forecasting
Health Expenditures
Humans
Insurance, Pharmaceutical Services
Male
Medicare
Models, Statistical
United States
Health Services Research
Primary Care
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
MCBS data are used to analyze the predictability of drug expenditures by Medicare beneficiaries. Predictors include demographic characteristics and measures of health status, the majority derived using CMS' diagnosis cost group/hierarchical condition category (DCG/HCC) risk-adjustment methodology. In prospective models, demographic variables explained 5 percent of the variation in drug expenditures. Adding health status measures raised this figure between 10 and 24 percent of the variation depending on the model configuration. Adding lagged drug expenditures more than doubled predictive power to 55 percent. These results are discussed in the context of forecasting, and risk adjustment for the proposed new Medicare drug benefit.Source
Health Care Financ Rev. 2003 Winter;25(2):37-46. Link to article on publisher's websitePermanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/36935PubMed ID
15124376Notes
At the time of publication, Becky Briesacher was not yet affiliated with the University of Massachusetts Medical School.