title: Monitoring outcomes for the Medicare Advantage program: methods and application of the VR-12 for evaluation of plans.
abstract: The Veterans RAND 12-Item Health Survey (VR-12) is one of the major patient-reported outcomes for ranking the Medicare Advantage (MA) plans in the Health Outcomes Survey (HOS). Approaches for scoring physical and mental health are given using contemporary norms and regression estimators. A new metric approach for the VR-12 called the "VR-6D" is presented with case-mix adjustments for monitoring plans that combine utilities and mortality. Results show that the models for ranking health outcomes of the plans are robust and credible. Future directions include the use of utilities for evaluating and ranking of MA plans.
authors.affiliation: Center for the Assessment of Pharmaceutical Practices (CAPP), Department of Health Policy and Management, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA.lek@bu.edu
authors.forename: Lewis E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Kazis
authors.forename: Alfredo J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Selim
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Rogers
authors.forename: Shirley X
authors.initials: SX
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brazier
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D020398:Medicare Part C; D008603:Mental Health; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D011788:Quality of Life; D014481:United States; D014493:United States Department of Veterans Affairs