The Commonwealth Fund: Montefiore Medical Center: Integrated Care Delivery For Vulnerable Populations - This case study finds that Montefiore Medical Center, an academic medical center in New York City where more than three-quarters of the revenues come from Medicaid and Medicare, "has been able to achieve financial and organizational sustainability. ... [it] has built an integrated system of high-quality primary, specialty, and inpatient health care for half a million residents of the Bronx." The hospital has redesigned its internal processes to improve care; reached beyond the hospital to partner with government, schools and other providers to improve the health of the community; and created "specialty centers of excellence that extend access to complex care for vulnerable populations and attract high-quality physicians"  (Chase, 10/19).

Kaiser Family Foundation: Medicare Spending And Use Of Medical Services For Beneficiaries In Nursing Homes And Other Long???Term Care Facilities: A Potential for Achieving Medicare Savings and Improving the Quality of Care - This report found that "Medicare beneficiaries living in long???term care facilities for at least part of 2006, account for 6 percent of the Medicare population but 17 percent of total Medicare spending. However, nearly half of the Medicare spending for these beneficiaries occurred prior to their admission into a long-term care facility. ... As policymakers look for ways to slow the growth in Medicare spending, our results underscore the potential value in pursuing interventions that focus specifically on Medicare beneficiaries living in long-term care facilities" (Jacobson, Neuman and Damico, 10/12).

Two other reports on long-term care and Medicare were also released at the same time. KHN covered the report: Studies Highlight High Medicare Costs For People In Nursing Homes (Miles, 10/12)

This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.