| Hot Topic: The Medicare Hospice Benefit: Policymakers Respond to the Challenges of Growth |
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| The Medicare Payment and Advisory Commission (MedPAC) reported that in 2009 nearly 1.1 million Medicare beneficiaries received hospice services at a cost totaling 12 billion dollars. The growth in the Medicare hospice benefit has raised questions about program design and its effects on costs and quality. MedPAC has recommended payment reforms to better reflect the different levels of intensity of care during a hospice stay. Research on hospice care, including work from HCFO grantees, can help to
inform Medicare policy.
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| HCFO Releases a New Findings Brief Examining Families with Chronic Conditions in High-Deductible Health Plans |
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| Do families with chronic conditions in high-deductible health plans face greater financial burden than those in traditional plans? Alison Galbraith, M.D., of Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, and colleagues compared 151 families in high-deductibl health plans with 345 families in traditional plans. They found that families with chronic conditions in high-deductible health plans were more likely to experience financial burden than families with chronic
conditions in traditional health plans.
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| New Data for Researchers |
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The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality released a new report about how income and geographic location influence hospitalizations among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
The Division of Health Care Statistics and the Ambulatory and Hospital Care Statistics Branch released new Web Tables, summarizing data from the 2008 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and 2008 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey.
The Society of General Internal Medicine Research Committee announced the SGIM Research Dataset Compendium, a service available on the society’s website that includes a description of and links to more than 40 high value datasets used for health services, clinical epidemiology, and medical education research.
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| Grantee Spotlight: Alison A. Galbraith, M.D., M.P.H. |
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| Alison A. Galbraith, M.D., M.P.H., was recently the principal investigator for a HCFO sponsored grant that examined the impact of high-deductible health plans on families. The project compared families with chronic conditions in high-deductible plans to families with chronic conditions in traditional plans to assess financial burden.
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| New Grantee Publications |
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| News and Events |
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HCFO News
Grant Application Changes at HCFO
This spring, HCFO will launch a new online grant application system. The new system will go live on May 2, 2011. If you are able to complete your submission by April 15th, you can use the current system. Otherwise, please wait and submit your application in early May.
Grantees in the News
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