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Biomedical subjects

P F Short

Publications and source records attributed to P F Short.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Health plan choice and information about out-of-pocket costs: an experimental analysis.

Many consumers are offered two or more employer-sponsored health insurance plans, and competition among health plans for subscribers is promoted as a mechanism for balancing health care costs and quality. Yet consumers may not receive the information necessary to make informed health plan choices. This study tests the effects on health plan choice of providing supplemental decision-support materials to inform consumers about expected health plan costs. Our main finding is that such information induces consumers to bear more risk, especially those in relatively good health. Thus our results suggest that working-age, privately insured consumers currently may be over-insuring for medical care.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

A workable solution for the pre-Medicare population.

Incremental reforms to expand health coverage among older Americans are justified by medical spending that increases with age and enrollment in employer insurance that decreases with age. Older Americans are also at risk of unexpected changes in health, access to health insurance, and earnings that could leave them poorly positioned financially for their retirement years. We propose offering universal access to Medicare at a community-rated premium, with premium vouchers for those with a history of low lifetime earnings and tax-preferred savings accounts to help everyone with the increased cost of insurance at older ages. These subsidies are available for coverage obtained from sources other than Medicare. We would set the eligibility age for the buy-in at 62. However, because enrollment in employer insurance does not drop precipitously at age 62, we regard the eligibility age as an adjustable design element that could resize the program to fit political and budgetary constraints.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2000

Hitting a moving target: income-related health insurance subsidies for the uninsured.

New government health insurance programs are likely to emphasize voluntary purchases in a market setting, with subsidies targeted at low-income populations and stress on managed care. Such programs are best structured with a guaranteed enrollment period that is as long as six months to a year. However, given that incomes change over time, errors will be made in awarding income-related subsidies for that long. These errors are assessed in simulations undertaken with longitudinal data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Two allocations of the subsidies, based on current income at the beginning of the enrollment period and on actual income assessed at the end, are compared for a variety of program designs. Prospective determination of subsidies is somewhat biased toward overpayment. Net overpayments amount to 5-10 percent of subsidy costs. However, prospective payment encourages participation in the subsidy program. The simulated participation rate for true eligibles is as high as 73 percent with prospective subsidies, compared to 69 percent with retrospective reconciliation. Net overpayments are slightly reduced by testing income less frequently and over longer periods.

Child↗
PubMed2000

Do consumer reports of health plan quality affect health plan selection?

OBJECTIVE: To learn whether consumer reports of health plan quality can affect health plan selection. DATA SOURCES: A sample of 311 privately insured adults from Los Angeles County. STUDY DESIGN: The design was a fractional factorial experiment. Consumers reviewed materials on four hypothetical health plans and selected one. The health plans varied as to cost, coverage, type of plan, ability to keep one's doctor, and quality, as measured by the Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Study (CAHPS) survey. DATA ANALYSIS: We used multinomial logistic regression to model each consumer's choice among health plans. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In the absence of CAHPS information, 86 percent of consumers preferred plans that covered more services, even though they cost more. When CAHPS information was provided, consumers shifted to less expensive plans covering fewer services if CAHPS ratings identified those plans as higher quality (59 percent of consumers preferred plans covering more services). Consumer choices were unaffected when CAHPS ratings identified the more expensive plans covering more services as higher quality (89 percent of consumers preferred plans covering more services). CONCLUSIONS: This study establishes that, under certain realistic conditions, CAHPS ratings could affect consumer selection of health plans and ultimately contain costs. Other studies are needed to learn how to enhance exposure and use of CAHPS information in the real world as well as to identify other conditions in which CAHPS ratings could make a difference.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Special issues in assessing care of Medicaid recipients.

OBJECTIVES: The authors describe the process used to develop and test survey items targeted to Medicaid consumers for the Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Study (CAHPS). In addition, the authors highlight the special challenges in locating and surveying Medicaid recipients and provide recommendations for increasing response rates. METHODS: The RAND CAHPS team reviewed the literature and existing questionnaires to identify health care issues and concepts important to Medicaid consumers. Three focus groups and 66 one-on-one cognitive interviews were conducted to test the relevance of our concepts and items and to identify additional concepts important to Medicaid consumers. After the cognitive interviews, the CAHPS Medicaid consumer survey was field tested using a sample of 930 adults and children receiving both Medicaid and Aid to Families with Dependent Children in Los Angeles County and Oklahoma. To determine if one particular mode were preferable for surveying a Medicaid population, our field test sample was divided randomly into a telephone-mode sample, a mixed-mode sample, and a second telephone-mode sample with enhanced locating procedures. Before finalizing the CAHPS 1.0 surveys, the full CAHPS item set was subjected to a formal literacy review. RESULTS: The results of the focus groups and cognitive testing informed iterative versions of the list of concepts addressed by the Medicaid-targeted items. Concepts that were not relevant to Medicaid consumers or that consumers were unable to accurately attribute to a health plan were discarded. New concepts addressing important aspects of health care and the health care experience of Medicaid consumers were identified and added. Item wording and format were revised and refined based on the findings from focus groups, cognitive testing, the field test, and the formal literacy review. In the field test, the mixed-mode method achieved the best results with a 56% completion rate. CONCLUSIONS: The testing and formatting efforts described in this article, in combination with a formal literacy review, led to the development of a Medicaid questionnaire that measures the important health care experiences of Medicaid consumers in a format that is "respondent-friendly." Our recommendations for surveying Medicaid recipients can benefit any survey of a Medicaid population.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Epilogue: Early lessons from CAHPS Demonstrations and Evaluations. Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Study.

OBJECTIVES: The Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Study (CAHPS) was developed to provide an integrated set of tested, standardized surveys to obtain meaningful information from health plan enrollees and their experiences. Many organizations began to implement CAHPS in 1997. Formal evaluations of the experiences of three demonstration sites with implementing CAHPS (ie, process evaluations) and the impact of CAHPS on consumer's choices (ie, outcome evaluations) were conducted. This article reports on the early findings and feedback from our process evaluations about the sites' experiences with using CAHPS. Results are presented from the first round demonstration sites, including the lessons learned during the demonstrations. Our plans for future demonstrations and evaluations are included. METHODS: A similar evaluation design and instruments were used across demonstration sites. The process evaluation to monitor program intervention included on-site interviews, off-site review of documents, and focus groups with consumers. RESULTS: There are 4 early results from the CAHPS demonstrations: (1) the CAHPS survey covers topics of importance to sponsors, is of reasonable length, and can be administered quickly; (2) the report templates are being used effectively, but sponsors vary widely in their preferences for summarizing and presenting CAHPS ratings; (3) standardized or off-the-shelf products are aspects of CAHPS that sponsors value highly, while emphasizing need for further development; and (4) because surveys like CAHPS require multiple within-plan samples to make plan comparisons, they require a substantial investment and may be affordable only for large sponsors. CONCLUSION: The first round CAHPS demonstrations highlighted the strengths of the integrated surveys and the areas for improving the products and the implementation process.

Consumer Behavior↗
PubMed1998

Gaps and transitions in health insurance: what are the concerns of women?

This is a study of women's health insurance that makes both disaggregated and longitudinal comparisons between men and women to identify and describe gaps and sources of insecurity that are important for women. Income and family status are more important than gender in explaining health insurance differences. In many respects, the health insurance experiences of single women are more similar to those of single men than those of married women. Although married women often depend on their husbands for employer-sponsored insurance, the health insurance of married men and women is otherwise quite similar. Married women are at no greater risk of losing employer-sponsored insurance than married men, and married women experience fewer gaps and changes in coverage than single women (and single men). An expansion of coverage to all poor and uninsured adults would benefit more women than men by a small margin, despite the focus of Medicaid on low-income women. The married uninsured are concentrated just above the poverty line and have a big stake in whether public coverage programs extend above poverty. The main issue for women at higher income levels, especially for single women who cannot fall back on a spouse for coverage, is the danger of losing health insurance as a result of changes in employment.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Single women and the dynamics of Medicaid.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate transitions in and out of Medicaid for a cohort of single adult women of childbearing age in order to address questions that arise as policymakers try to encourage transitions from welfare to work. DATA SOURCES: Longitudinal data from Waves 2 through 8 of the 1990 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, a nationally representative survey of American adults covering May 1990-1992. STUDY DESIGN: We estimate a series of discrete-time logit models with duration dependence to obtain transition probabilities among Medicaid, privately insured, and uninsured spells. Explanatory variables in the models include prior insurance history, income limits on Medicaid by state, and important socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. We use these models to characterize insurance spells for a cohort of single women. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Most Medicaid spells are relatively short. Over half end in a year or less; only one spell out of seven lasts longer than five years. Two-thirds of Medicaid disenrollees become uninsured. Former welfare recipients are prone to frequent changes in insurance status. In states with more generous income limits for AFDC, women stay on Medicaid longer, but they do not move into the program at a faster rate. CONCLUSIONS: Imposing time limits on Medicaid eligibility would affect only a small proportion of Medicaid spells but would eliminate a significant proportion of the caseload at a point in time. In considering changes in Medicaid that would encourage transitions from welfare to work and would alter the dynamics of Medicaid, policymakers need to consider how transitions both in and out of private insurance and Medicaid would be affected.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

The effect of universal coverage on health expenditures for the uninsured.

OBJECTIVES: Universal coverage will trigger an increase in health-care spending, because the uninsured will use more services after they are insured. The effect of insurance status on expenditures is estimated here from a multivariate statistical model. METHODS: The model is estimated with data from the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey, aged to 1994 using population projections from the US Bureau of the Census and expenditure projections from the Health Care Financing Administration. RESULTS: Expenditures for the full-year uninsured increase by approximately $700 per person in 1994 as a result of universal coverage. Nearly half of the increase is because of a substantial increase in the likelihood of hospitalization. CONCLUSIONS: If the uninsured are enrolled in plans similar to those offered by employers currently, personal health-care spending increases by approximately $20 billion in 1994. There are other costs associated with universal coverage that are not included in this figure.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Self-insured employer health plans: prevalence, profile, provisions, and premiums.

Data from three recent surveys indicate that about 40 percent of workers with employment-based health insurance are enrolled in plans that their employers self-insure. Despite the considerable differences between federal regulation of these self-insured plans and state regulation of employer plans purchased from an insurance company, we find striking similarities in the populations they serve, the benefits they offer, and their premium costs. Implications for health policy are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

New estimates of the underinsured younger than 65 years.

We estimate that at least 29 million Americans with private insurance are underinsured. That figure identifies the underinsured younger than 65 years by the risk of large out-of-pocket expenditures for an unusually expensive, catastrophic illness. A slightly smaller number, about 25 million, are underinsured by an alternate definition: they have insurance that pays a smaller proportion of claims than the plan with the largest enrollment in the federal employee program. The federal employee plan was the insurance standard proposed in several recent health system reform bills. Our estimate of the number of people who are underinsured for catastrophic illness is almost half again larger than the number that was widely cited during last year's debates on health system reform. That estimate was based on the same concept but was projected from a study published 10 years ago.

Actuarial Analysis↗
PubMed1994

Nursing home financing reform: how would it affect expenditures for nursing home care?

There are a number of proposals to expand substantially public financing of nursing home care. Included among the major elements of these proposals are front-end benefits limited to three or six months, back-end benefits with waiting periods of one or two years, and coverage of all nursing home days with or without substantial income-related cost sharing. Using data from the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey, this paper simulates the effect of these proposed changes in nursing home financing on public expenditures, Medicaid expenditures, and private expenditures (in total and by marital status and income group). The incentive for increased use of nursing home care also is examined. A short front-end benefit, the least expensive option in terms of public expenditures, increases public expenditures by $1 billion to $2 billion in 1987. Comprehensive coverage of all nursing home days increases public costs by $9 billion to $10 billion dollars, depending on the cost-sharing arrangement. There is wide variation in the range of plausible estimates because of uncertainty about the effect of increased public coverage of nursing home care on utilization.

Costs and Cost Analysis↗
PubMed1992

Encouraging preventive services for low-income children. The effect of expanding Medicaid.

Every year since 1984, Congress has expanded Medicaid to cover an increasing proportion of low-income children. In this study, a multivariate analysis of data from the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey was used to determine whether expanded Medicaid eligibility is likely to be effective in encouraging recommended preventive visits for low-income, preschool children. For low-income children who would otherwise be uninsured, a full year of Medicaid increased the probability of any well-child visits by 17 percentage points, and compliance with the guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics for well-child visits increased by 13 percentage points. The generosity of Medicaid fees did not alter the magnitude of these effects. However, even if all uninsured children under 200% of the poverty line were eligible for Medicaid, low-income children would continue to lag behind other children in their use of preventive services. Factors other than insurance and income, such as the lower educational attainment of low-income mothers, explain approximately 80% of the gap between children above and below 200% of poverty. The rate of compliance with the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines was less than 50% for all preschool children. Departures from the recommended schedule of visits were particularly pronounced in the second year of life and may interfere with children receiving the recommended immunizations in a timely manner.

Black or African American↗
PubMed1992

Multiple sources of Medicare supplementary insurance.

Estimates from the National Medical Expenditure Survey imply that in 1987 only two-thirds of elderly Medicare beneficiaries held the amount and type of insurance that is generally recommended to supplement Medicare, namely, 57.7% with private hospital/medical insurance from one source and 6.6% with only Medicaid. Of the remainder, 19.8% had more than one source of private insurance; slightly more than 1% had one source of extra-cash or disease-specific insurance as their only supplementary coverage; and 12.9% had no supplementary coverage at all. In addition, more than 500,000 Medicaid enrollees had purchased private insurance, despite the comprehensive coverage offered by Medicaid. Although the issue of multiple coverage has been dramatized by stories of poor, very elderly persons who have purchased numerous Medigap plans, beneficiaries who purchase coverage from more than one source are likely to be relatively young, more highly educated, and financially better off.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1992

Public and private responsibility for financing nursing-home care: the effect of Medicaid asset spend-down.

Data from a nationally representative sample of nursing-home residents at the beginning of 1987 are used to assess the interaction of Medicaid asset spend-down, the distribution of nursing-home days by payment source, and the effect of proposed changes in public financing of nursing-home care. Three out of five nursing-home residents were covered by Medicaid in January 1987; nearly all of the remainder were private-pay. Most Medicaid recipients were covered by Medicaid when they entered the care facility at the start of an episode, but 18 percent had spent down and were originally admitted as private-pay. A universal nursing-home benefit that insured the first six months of each nursing-home episode would cover 16 percent of the people in nursing homes on a given day, disproportionately those who are private-pay. A universal benefit with a 24-month waiting period would cover 56 percent of nursing-home residents on a given day, and would tend to favor those financed by Medicaid.

Financing, Government↗
PubMed1991

Standardizing nursing-home admission dates for short-term hospital stays.

In the Institutional Population Component of the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey, the definition of a nursing home admission was standardized to ignore the readmission of patients discharged for short-term hospital care. Approximately one out of six persons residing in nursing homes on the survey reference date (January 1, 1987) had been readmitted for this reason. The effect of the standardization was to increase the average length of stay of residents prior to the reference date by approximately 5 months. The percentage of long-stay residents, those living in the facility for more than three years, increased from 31% to 36%. The percentage admitted from the community during the previous year increased from 32% of those admitted in 1986 to 41%.

Aged↗
PubMed1990

The competing demands of employment and informal caregiving to disabled elders.

The competing demands of work and elder care are the subject of this study. The employment decisions of the informal caregivers of a nationally representative sample of disabled elders were examined using a nested multinomial logit model. Findings from the work accommodation model demonstrated that primary caregivers and those caring for elders with greater care needs are more likely to take unpaid leave, reduce work hours, or rearrange their work schedules to assume elder care responsibilities. Being female, white, and in fair-to-poor health also increased the likelihood of work accommodation. The model predicting employment of a caregiver revealed that the prospect of having to accommodate work to the demands of caregiving keeps some people from work entirely. However, not all caregivers would choose to work in the absence of caregiving responsibilities. After controlling for the probability of work accommodation, need for care, and availability of others to care, it is more likely that younger, white and more highly educated caregivers will be employed. The self-selection of working caregivers observed in this study should be considered when forecasting changes in caregiving costs associated with changes in the labor force participation of caregivers as a result of deliberate policies or social and demographic trends.

Activities of Daily Living↗