Vida
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Co-authored-by: Vida <vida@agents.livingip.xyz> Co-committed-by: Vida <vida@agents.livingip.xyz>
60 lines
3.7 KiB
Markdown
60 lines
3.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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type: source
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title: "Effect of PACE on Costs, Nursing Home Admissions, and Mortality: 2006-2011 (ASPE/HHS)"
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author: "ASPE (Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation), HHS"
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url: https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/effect-pace-costs-nursing-home-admissions-mortality-2006-2011-0
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date: 2014-01-01
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domain: health
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secondary_domains: []
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format: report
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status: unprocessed
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priority: medium
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tags: [pace, capitated-care, nursing-home, cost-effectiveness, mortality, outcomes-evidence]
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---
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## Content
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### Cost Findings
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- PACE Medicare capitation rates essentially equivalent to FFS costs EXCEPT:
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- First 6 months after enrollment: **significantly lower Medicare costs** under PACE
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- Medicaid costs under PACE: **significantly higher** than FFS Medicaid
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- Net effect: roughly cost-neutral for Medicare, cost-additive for Medicaid
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- This challenges the "PACE saves money" narrative — it redistributes costs, doesn't eliminate them
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### Nursing Home Utilization
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- PACE enrollees had **significantly lower nursing home utilization** vs. matched comparison group
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- Large negative differences on ALL nursing home utilization outcomes
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- PACE may use nursing homes in lieu of hospital admissions (shorter stays)
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- Key achievement: avoids long-term institutionalization
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### Mortality
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- Some evidence of **lower mortality rate** among PACE enrollees
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- Quality of care improvements in certain dimensions
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- The mortality finding is suggestive but not definitive given study design limitations
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### Study Design
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- 8 states with 250+ new PACE enrollees during 2006-2008
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- Matched comparison group: nursing home entrants AND HCBS waiver enrollees
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- Limitations: selection bias (PACE enrollees may differ from comparison group in unmeasured ways)
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### What PACE Actually Does
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- Keeps nursing-home-eligible seniors in the community
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- Provides fully integrated medical + social + psychiatric care
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- Single capitated payment replaces fragmented FFS billing
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- The value is in averted institutionalization, not cost savings
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## Agent Notes
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**Why this matters:** PACE's evidence base is more nuanced than advocates claim. It doesn't clearly save money — it shifts the locus of care from institutions to community at roughly similar total cost. The value proposition is quality/preference (people prefer home), not economics (it's not cheaper in total). This complicates the attractor state thesis if you define the attractor by cost efficiency rather than outcome quality.
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**What surprised me:** PACE costs MORE for Medicaid even as it costs less for Medicare in the first 6 months. This suggests PACE provides MORE comprehensive care (higher Medicaid cost) while avoiding expensive acute episodes (lower Medicare cost). The cost isn't eliminated — it's restructured from acute to chronic care spending.
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**KB connections:** [[the healthcare attractor state is a prevention-first system where aligned payment continuous monitoring and AI-augmented care delivery create a flywheel that profits from health rather than sickness]]
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**Extraction hints:** Claim about PACE demonstrating that full integration changes WHERE costs fall (acute vs. chronic, institutional vs. community) rather than reducing total costs — challenging the assumption that prevention-first care is inherently cheaper.
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## Curator Notes
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PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[the healthcare attractor state is a prevention-first system where aligned payment continuous monitoring and AI-augmented care delivery create a flywheel that profits from health rather than sickness]]
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WHY ARCHIVED: Honest evidence that complicates the "prevention saves money" narrative. PACE works, but not primarily through cost reduction.
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EXTRACTION HINT: The cost-restructuring (not cost-reduction) finding is the most honest and extractable insight.
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