Health Care Utilization, Care Satisfaction, and Health Status for Medicare Advantage and Traditional Medicare Beneficiaries With and Without Alzheimer Disease and Related Dementias

The purpose of this study was to determine differences in health care utilization, care satisfaction, and health status for Medicare Advantage (MA) and Traditional Medicare (TM) beneficiaries with and without Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD). A cohort study was conducted of MA and TM beneficiaries with and without ADRD from all publicly available years of the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey between 2010 and 2016. To address advantageous selection into MA plans, county-level MA enrollment rate was used as an instrument. Data were analyzed between July 2019 and December 2019. Compared with TM beneficiaries, MA beneficiaries had lower health care utilization without compromising care satisfaction and health status. This difference was more pronounced among beneficiaries with ADRD. These findings suggest that MA plans may be delivering health care more efficiently than TM, especially for beneficiaries with ADRD.

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Park S, White L, Fishman P, Larson EB, Coe NB: Health Care Utilization, Care Satisfaction, and Health Status for Medicare Advantage and Traditional Medicare Beneficiaries With and Without Alzheimer Disease and Related Dementias. JAMA Network Open 3(3), Mar 2020.

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