Frail elderly adults—those 65 and over with two or more medical conditions—account for nearly half of potentially preventable Medicare spending, according to a new study led by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The study was published online October 17, 2017 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
First author Jose Figueroa, a research associate at Harvard Chan School and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, and colleagues analyzed data from a 20% sample of Medicare fee-for-service claims from 2012, representing 6,112,450 beneficiaries.
According to the researchers, in 2012, 4.8% of Medicare spending was potentially preventable, of which 73.8% was incurred by high-cost patients. Despite making up only 4% of the Medicare population, frail elderly persons accounted for 43.9% of total potentially preventable spending ($6,593 per person). Much of the spending included acute care visits for heart failure, bacterial pneumonia, urinary tract infections, diabetes long-term complications, and dehydration, according to the study.
The authors recommend that interventions target this population to help reduce health care costs.
Ashish Jha, senior associate dean, research translation and global strategy and K.T. Li Professor of Global Health, was senior author of the study.
Read Medscape coverage: Potentially Preventable Medicare Spending High in Frail Elderly