Previous research shows that use of postacute services such as skilled nursing home care can explain much of the variation in Medicare spending across the country. Now a new Health Affairs study by Harvard’s Thomas C. Tsai, M.D., and Ashish K. Jha, M.D., along with former Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow Felix Greaves and colleagues, indicates that spending on postacute services may be driven in part by the quality of care received by surgical patients while in the hospital.
Study: Medicare Spends Less When Beneficiaries Get Surgery at High-Quality Hospitals
