Medicare

Cancer chemotherapy lowered risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurocognitive disorders that disproportionately affect older people. Read More

People who qualify for both Medicaid and Medicare tend to have very serious, complex health problems, but new research by Laura Keohane shows that their rate of healthcare spending is not rising any faster than that of people eligible for just Medicare. Read More

A team led by Stacie Dusetzina has received a grant to determine whether rising drug prices and out-of-pocket expenses are causing older Americans enrolled in Medicare Part D to delay or never fill their prescriptions. Read More

Vanderbilt University economist Andrew Goodman-Bacon, who studies the long-term effects of public safety net programs like Medicaid, gives his take on the latest Senate health care proposal. Read More

Social risk factors including income, education and ethnic background influence health outcomes and should be taken into account in Medicare payment models, according to a New England Journal of Medicine “Perspective” titled “Social Risk Factors and Equity in Medicare Payment.” Read More

A program launched by Schnelle in January 2013 aims to reduce readmissions for Medicare patients transferred from Vanderbilt University Hospital to any of 23 area skilled nursing facilities, or SNFs. The specific goal is 17 percent reduction, by 2015, in 30-day hospital readmissions directly from these SNFs. Read More

Efforts by the federal government to control the nation’s spiraling budget deficit, including sequestration that took effect on March 1, have created the potential for significant impact to Medicare’s long-standing support for graduate medical education and could limit the ability of the nation’s academic medical centers to care for patients and train the next generation of physicians, says Donald Brady, senior associate dean of Graduate Medical Education for Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Read More

The following are answers to frequently asked questions regarding the financial pressures created by the federal budget sequester and other legislation now facing Vanderbilt University Medical Center and academic health centers across the country. Read More

Over the next three years, Medicare will test a new payment arrangement that rewards participating hospitals when Medicare patients require fewer inpatient and post-discharge services, but extracts financial penalties when patients require more of these services. Read More