Spending and Outcomes for Complex Medicare Advantage Patients

February 6, 2022 updated by: Amol Navathe, University of Pennsylvania

Characterizing High-Cost, High-Need Patient Populations and Response to Care Management Programs at a NetworkModel Medicare Advantage Health Maintenance Organization

This project will use data from a large network-model health maintenance organization that operates Medicare Advantage (MA) plans (CareMore) and fee-for-service Medicare data to (1) better understand the characteristics of high-need, high-cost MA enrollees patients and (2) evaluate the impact of a care management program focused on high-need high-cost MA enrollees with end-stage renal disease.

Study Overview

Status

Status

Indicates the current recruitment status or the expanded access status.
Completed

Conditions

Conditions

The disease, disorder, syndrome, illness, or injury that is being studied. On ClinicalTrials.gov, conditions may also include other health-related issues, such as lifespan, quality of life, and health risks.

Detailed Description

There will be two aims. Aim 1 will describe and categorize high-need, high-cost populations. The investigators will use CareMore inpatient, outpatient, and pharmacy claims from years 2010-2014. The investigators will construct mortality and readmission risk category and they will utilize traditional claims-based risk models developed on out of sample data to categorize patient risk level. For the high health expenditure category, they will examine inpatient, outpatient, and pharmacy data to identify groups of patients who drive disproportionate health spending. Finally, for utilization the investigators will use claims and outpatient visit data (to the extent any electronic health record (EHR) data becomes available) to identify patients with disproportionate visit intensity. The approach to describe patients within these groups will be to categorize patients into deciles and utilize multivariate regression models to identify demographic, clinical, socioeconomic, and geographic characteristics associated with presence in a top decile along each metric. For example, the investigators will describe individual and clusters of diagnoses that are associated with high spending. They will also examine patients who meet multiple criteria and describe associated characteristics. Aim 2 will examine the impact of CareMore's end stage renal disease (ESRD) care model. They will use CareMore inpatient, outpatient, skilled nursing facilities (SNF), inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRF), other facilities, pharmacy, and post-acute care claims and Center for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Fee-For-Service (FFS) data from matched geographies. They will also attempt to obtain the healthcare effectiveness data information set (HEDIS) data from health plan at patient and physician level, CMS stars measure data, available electronic medical record (EMR) data, and physician characteristics data to the extent CareMore can provide. They will perform a retrospective analysis of claims data. The investigators will use a primary comparison group of ESRD patients in Medicare FFS, particularly in localities where no ESRD special need plans (SNP) is offered to mitigate some effects of selection. The team will also explore a second comparison group of CareMore traditional MA plan enrollees who develop ESRD. They will first examine patient, physician, and plan or site characteristics associated with variation in utilization of the specialized services including enhanced nutritional counseling, personalized care plans, dialysis treatment evaluation, and supplemental medical evaluations -- using logistic regression. Second, they will perform a descriptive analysis of the association between use of these services and cost and quality outcomes.

Study Type

Study Type

Describes the nature of a clinical study. Study types include interventional studies (also called clinical trials), observational studies (including patient registries), and expanded access.
Observational

Enrollment (Actual)

Enrollment

The number of participants in a clinical study. The "anticipated" enrollment is the target number of participants that the researchers need for the study.
61546

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

The key requirements that people who want to participate in a clinical study must meet or the characteristics they must have. Eligibility criteria consist of both inclusion criteria (which are required for a person to participate in the study) and exclusion criteria (which prevent a person from participating). Types of eligibility criteria include whether a study accepts healthy volunteers, has age or age group requirements, or is limited by sex.

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

The target population will be all patients with at least one CareMore and CareMore ESRD patients - both enrolled in ESRD SNPs and traditional MA plan - and Medicare FFS ESRD patients in matched geographies.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Participants in this study will be patients of CareMore with at least one claim, ESRD CareMore patients enrolled in a SNP or a traditional MA plan, and Medicare FFS ESRD patients in matched geographies.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Participants without at least one claim with CareMore or not located in a matched Medicare FFS geographies.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures

In a clinical study's protocol, the planned outcome measure that is the most important for evaluating the effect of an intervention/treatment. Most clinical studies have one primary outcome measure, but some have more than one.
Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Mortality
Time Frame: 12 months
The study team will evaluate mortality by using 30 day mortality after readmission.
12 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Secondary Outcome Measures

In a clinical study's protocol, a planned outcome measure that is not as important as the primary outcome measure for evaluating the effect of an intervention but is still of interest. Most clinical studies have more than one secondary outcome measure.
Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Hospital Readmissions
Time Frame: 12 months
The study team will evaluate re-admissions by measuring 30-day all-cause unplanned readmission.
12 months
Cost
Time Frame: 12 months
The study team will evaluate cost by measuring total medical spending.
12 months
Ambulatory sensitive condition admission
Time Frame: 12 months
The study team will evaluate admissions by measuring ambulatory sensitive conditions admissions.
12 months
Utilization
Time Frame: 12 months
The study team will evaluate utilization be measuring the index of outpatient and inpatient utilization.
12 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Sponsor

The organization or person who initiates the study and who has authority and control over the study.
University of Pennsylvania

Collaborators

Collaborators

An organization other than the sponsor that provides support for a clinical study. This support may include activities related to funding, design, implementation, data analysis, or reporting.
Blue Cross Blue Shield

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

Study Start

The actual date on which the first participant was enrolled in a clinical study. The "anticipated" study start date is the date that the researchers think will be the study start date.
September 1, 2016

Primary Completion (Actual)

Primary Completion

The date on which the last participant in a clinical study was examined or received an intervention to collect final data for the primary outcome measure. Whether the clinical study ended according to the protocol or was terminated does not affect this date. For clinical studies with more than one primary outcome measure with different completion dates, this term refers to the date on which data collection is completed for all the primary outcome measures. The "anticipated" primary completion date is the date that the researchers think will be the primary completion date for the study.
December 1, 2018

Study Completion (Actual)

Study Completion

The date on which the last participant in a clinical study was examined or received an intervention/treatment to collect final data for the primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, and adverse events (that is, the last participant's last visit). The "anticipated" study completion date is the date that the researchers think will be the study completion date.
December 1, 2021

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

First Submitted

The date on which the study sponsor or investigator first submitted a study record to ClinicalTrials.gov. There is typically a delay of a few days between the first submitted date and the record's availability on ClinicalTrials.gov (the first posted date).
September 28, 2016

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

The date on which the study sponsor or investigator first submits a study record that is consistent with National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review criteria. The sponsor or investigator may need to revise and submit a study record one or more times before NLM's QC review criteria are met. It is the responsibility of the sponsor or investigator to ensure that the study record is consistent with the NLM QC review criteria.
October 3, 2016

First Posted (Estimate)

First Posted

The date on which the study record was first available on ClinicalTrials.gov after National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review has concluded. There is typically a delay of a few days between the date the study sponsor or investigator submitted the study record and the first posted date.
October 4, 2016

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

Last Update Posted

The most recent date on which changes to a study record were made available on ClinicalTrials.gov. There may be a delay between when the changes were submitted to ClinicalTrials.gov by the study's sponsor or investigator (the last update submitted date) and the last update posted date.
February 8, 2022

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

The most recent date on which the study sponsor or investigator submitted changes to a study record that are consistent with National Library of Medicine (NLM) quality control (QC) review criteria. It is the responsibility of the sponsor or investigator to ensure that the study record is consistent with the NLM QC review criteria.
February 6, 2022

Last Verified

Last Verified

The most recent date on which the study sponsor or investigator confirmed the information about a clinical study on ClinicalTrials.gov as accurate and current. If a study with a recruitment status of recruiting; not yet recruiting; or active, not recruiting has not been confirmed within the past 2 years, the study's recruitment status is shown as unknown.
February 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

Other Study ID Numbers

Identifiers or ID numbers other than the NCT number that are assigned to a clinical study by the study's sponsor, funders, or others. These numbers may include unique identifiers from other trial registries and National Institutes of Health grant numbers.
  • 825923

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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