Dive Brief:
- A new JAMA Internal Medicine study has concluded that in 2009, Medicare spent as much as $8.5 billion on services with little or no clinical value.
- To study the issue, researchers identified 26 low-value services that fall into categories including: low-value cancer screening, low-value diagnostic and preventive screening and low-value cardiovascular testing procedures.
- After analyzing 2009 Medicare claims, the researchers found between 25% and 42% of beneficiaries received low-value services, Becker's Hospital Review reports.
Dive Insight:
While this research has its value, even the authors note that claims-based measures of low-value care have their "imperfections":
"Many direct claims-based measures of overuse may be insufficiently accurate to support targeted coverage or payment policies that have a meaningful effect on use without resulting in unintended consequences," according to the study's authors. They recommend broader payment reforms, such as global or bundled payment models, as a means of allowing greater provider discretion in defining and identifying low-value service.