Diagnosed prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in Medicare Advantage plans

July 5, 2020

Members of the IMPACT Collaboratory Technical Data Core recently published new findings in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring from the Alzheimer’s Association. The study is the first to report the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD) diagnosis among Medicare Advantage (MA) beneficiaries immediately prior to and following the transition from ICD-9 (2014) to ICD-10 (2016). The researchers calculated the prevalence of AD/ADRD diagnoses in 2014 and 2016 in three MA plans using NIH Collaboratory Distributed Research Network, determined the demographic characteristics of beneficiaries diagnosed with AD/ADRD, and whether they disenrolled from the MA plan for any reason within 364 days from the index date. They found the prevalence of AD/ADRD diagnosis in MA is lower than rates reported in Medicare fee‐for‐service.

IMPACT authors include Eric Jutkowitz, PhD,  Julie P.W. Bynum, MD, MPH, Susan L. Mitchell, MD, MPH, Richard Platt, MD, MSc, and Ellen P. McCarthy, PhD, MPH.

Read the full article here.