title: Left ventricular ejection fraction test rates for Medicare beneficiaries with heart failure.
abstract: The left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) test rate is increasingly used as a quality of care indicator for patients with heart failure. Our study produced benchmark LVEF test rates in a Medicare fee-for-service population for consideration by a clinical panel assembled by the Health Care Financing Administration. Our sample consisted of 46,583 beneficiaries admitted to the hospital for heart failure and with a complete set of Medicare fee-for-service bills dated 1996 or 1997. The national 2-year LVEF test rate was 79% for Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries hospitalized for heart failure. Except for 1 state, the test rate ranged from 61% to 89% across states. Our analysis demonstrates the feasibility of using billing data to compute LVEF test rates. Using a 2-year time window and measuring tests performed in outpatient as well as inpatient settings, we find a higher LVEF test rate than has been reported by most previous studies.
authors.affiliation: Health Economics Research, Inc., 411 Waverley Oaks Rd, Suite 330, Waltham, MA 02452-8414, USA.
authors.forename: Bei
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Gregory C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Pope
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D019985:Benchmarking; D018588:Fee-for-Service Plans / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D006278:Medicare / Q000592:standards*; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D013318:Stroke Volume; D014481:United States; D016277:Ventricular Function, Left