To test the hypothesis that health systems provide better care to patients with high needs by comparing differences in quality between system‐affiliated and nonaffiliated physician organizations (POs) and to examine variability in quality across health systems.
2015 Medicare Data on Provider Practice and Specialty linked physicians to POs. Medicare Provider Enrollment, Chain, and Ownership System (PECOS) and IRS Form 990 data identified health system affiliations. Fee‐for‐service Medicare enrollment and claims data were used to examine quality.
This cross‐sectional analysis of beneficiaries with high needs, defined as having more than twice the expected spending of an average beneficiary, examined six quality measures: continuity of care, follow‐up visits after hospitalizations and emergency department (ED) visits, ED visits, all‐cause readmissions, and ambulatory care‐sensitive hospitalizations. Using a matched‐pair design, we estimated beneficiary‐level regression models with PO random effects to compare quality of care in system‐affiliated and nonaffiliated POs. We then limited the sample to system‐affiliated POs and estimated models with system random effects to examine variability in quality across systems.
Among 2 323 301 beneficiaries with high needs, 52.3% received care from system‐affiliated POs. Rates of ED visits were statistically significantly different in system‐affiliated POs (117.5 per 100) and nonaffiliated POs (106.8 per 100, < .0001). Small differences in the other five quality measures were observed across a range of sensitivity analyses. Among systems, substantial variation was observed for rates of continuity of care (90% of systems had rates between 70.8% and 89.4%) and follow‐up after ED visits (90% of systems had rates between 56.9% and 73.5%).
Small differences in quality of care were observed among beneficiaries with high needs receiving care from system POs and nonsystem POs. Health systems may not confer hypothesized quality advantages to patients with high needs.
