Regional Supply of Medical Resources and Systemic Overuse of Health Care Among Medicare Beneficiaries.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Overuse of health care resources has been identified as the leading contributor to waste in the US health care system.

Objective

To explore health care system factors associated with regional variation in systemic overuse of health care resources as measured by the Johns Hopkins Overuse Index (JHOI) which aggregates systemic overuse of 20 health care services.

Design

Using Medicare fee-for-service claims data from beneficiaries age 65 or over in 2008, we calculated the JHOI for the 306 hospital referral regions in the United States. We used ordinary least squares regression and multilevel models to estimate the association of JHOI scores and characteristics of regional health care delivery systems listed in the Area Health Resource File and Dartmouth Atlas.

SUBMITTER: Zhou M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6258607 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature