Payer effects of personalized preventive care for patients with diabetes

To examine the effects of MD-Value in Prevention (MDVIP) enrollment on Medicare expenditures and utilization among fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiaries with diabetes over a 5-year period.

We obtained participating physician and beneficiary enrollment lists from MDVIP and Medicare FFS claims data through the Virtual Research Data Center to compare changes in outcomes, before and after enrollment dates, with those of nonenrolled beneficiaries receiving primary care in the same local market.

We employed propensity score matching to identify comparison beneficiaries similar in observed characteristics and preenrollment trends. Individual fixed effects were used to control for time-consistent differences between treatment and comparison populations.

We found that enrollment is statistically associated with reductions in outpatient expenditures, Medicare expenditures in year 5, emergency department (ED) utilization, and unplanned inpatient admissions, accompanied by significant increases in evaluation and management visits and expenditures. Total Medicare expenditures over the 5-year period, as well as all inpatient admissions, were not statistically different between the MDVIP and comparison groups.

Our finding of reduced unplanned inpatient admissions and ED utilization supports the previous findings regarding MDVIP enrollees. We did not find significant changes in overall third-party expenditures, although savings were estimated in year 5, the last year of observation, and may occur later. Our approach, however, strengthens controls for baseline characteristics of the population and uses a comparison population drawn from the same markets who do not experience the loss of their primary care physician at the time of enrollment.