Adoption of retrospective Medicare maximization billing practices by state Medicaid home care programs

Home care services funded by Medicare and Medicaid grew rapidly throughout most of the 1990s. During this period some state Medicaid programs transferred costs for home care claims to the Medicare program to reduce their liability and increase beneficiary access to Medicare coverage. This article reports the findings of the first national study of these Medicare maximization billing practices for home care services. Primary data were collected to determine which states conduct retrospective Medicare billing practices and the amounts recovered from Medicare. Our analysis indicates that seven states recovered as much as dollar 265 million from Medicare in state and federal dollars during the 1990s. Ratios of recovered expenditures-to-costs incurred for retrospective billing practices conducted in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts are between 5:1 and 7:1. While retrospective billing practices may aid states in reducing Medicaid outlays and potentially help dual Medicare beneficiaries gain coverage for their home care claims, they increase Medicare expenditures for home care at a time of concern for the long-term financial viability of Medicare and illustrate the need for reforming our national long-term care financing policy.     

Threats to Perceptions of Fairness in the Termination of Parental Rights

Termination of parental rights (TPR) proceedings are among the most important family court activities. This study contributes to knowledge of the TPR process by illustrating practices employed in TPR proceedings and considering ways that certain practices can hinder perceptions of fairness. TPR court records from one state were analyzed using inductive coding procedures. The analysis identified nine categories of threats to perceptions of fairness in the TPR process. Findings have implications for procedural justice and the legitimacy of child welfare practice.     

The re-occurrence of violations in occupational safety and health administration inspections

How well do firms in the United States maintain compliance with occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) standards after being cited for a violation? How and why does this vary among standards? This paper identifies serious violations of 91 frequently cited standards at manufacturing plants during 1992–2002 and tracks compliance with that standard in later inspections over 10 years. While formal measures of Repeat violations are quite low, we find considerably higher re-violation rates for some standards once we look separately at how often health standards are cited in later health inspections and safety standards cited in later safety inspections. Characteristics of the standards affect re-violation rates, but not always in the expected direction. Standards whose violations are rated as more hazardous or which received higher initial penalties tend to have more re-violations. These findings could reflect inspector behavior, with those standards getting more attention and thus being cited more frequently. When, as in the case of OSHA and other enforcement agencies, we know about violations only when inspectors cite them, we need to consider bureaucratic behavior as well as employers' incentives.     

Projectile Wound to Head from Modified Electronic Cigarette Explosion

One of the dangers of a rapidly growing technology industry is the risk involved in being intimately close to lithium-ion batteries. When exposed to improper conditions, lithium-ion batteries in a variety of devices have been reported to ignite and, in some cases, explode. With the rise of electronic cigarette use and modifications, the lithium-ion batteries in these devices are subject to a higher risk of malfunction. This is a retrograde analysis of a 38-year-old man who experienced fatal penetrating head trauma while using a modified electronic cigarette device. The findings suggest that the trauma from the explosion was caused by the thermal runaway of the lithium-ion battery in the modified e-cigarette.     

Poisson-Based Regression Analysis of Aggregate Crime Rates

This article introduces the use of regression models based on the Poissondistribution as a tool for resolving common problems in analyzing aggregatecrime rates. When the population size of an aggregate unit is small relativeto the offense rate, crime rates must be computed from a small number ofoffenses. Such data are ill-suited to least-squares analysis. Poisson-basedregression models of counts of offenses are preferable because they arebuilt on assumptions about error distributions that are consistent withthe nature of event counts. A simple elaboration transforms the Poissonmodel of offense counts to a model of per capita offense rates. Todemonstrate the use and advantages of this method, this article presentsanalyses of juvenile arrest rates for robbery in 264 nonmetropolitancounties in four states. The negative binomial variant of Poisson regressioneffectively resolved difficulties that arise in ordinary least-squaresanalyses.     

Understanding research methods,limitations, and applications of drug data collected by the National Forensic Laboratory Information System (NFLIS-Drug)

The National Forensic Laboratory Information System (NFLIS) is a drug surveillance program of the US Drug Enforcement Administration that systematically collects data on drugs that are seized by law enforcement and submitted to and analyzed by the Nation's forensic laboratories (NFLIS-Drug). NFLIS-Drug data are increasingly used in predictive modeling and drug surveillance to examine drug availability patterns. Given the complexity of the data and data collection, there are some common methodological pitfalls that we highlight with the aim of helping researchers avoid these concerns. The analysis done for this Technical Note is based on a review of the scientific literature that includes 428 unique, refereed article citations in 182 distinct journals published between January 1, 2005, and April 30, 2021. Each article was analyzed according to how NFLIS-Drug data were mentioned and whether NFLIS-Drug data were included. A sample of 37 articles was studied in-depth, and data issues were summarized. Using examples from the literature, this Technical Note highlights eight broad concerns that have important implications for the proper applications, interpretations, and limitations of NFLIS-Drug data with suggestions for improving research methods and accurate reporting of forensic drug data. NFLIS-Drug data are timely and provide key information to inform drug use trends across the United States; however, our present analysis shows that NFLIS-Drug data are misunderstood and represented in the literature. In addition to highlighting these issues, DEA has created several resources to assist NFLIS data users and researchers, which are summarized in the discussion.     

Turkish economic development: The first five year plan, 1963–67

This article evaluates the effectiveness of Turkey's First Five Year Development Plan (1963–67) in achieving both its domestic and its international objectives.

A target of 7 per cent for the G.N.P. growth rate was nearly achieved, but individual sectors diverged from the plan. Agricultural and manufacturing output increased only about three‐quarters as fast as planned, while the construction and service industries exceeded the planned rate. In agriculture, neither new investment nor, more important, the dissemination of new techniques proceeded as rapidly as expected. Insufficient amounts of well‐organized investment projects, foreign exchange, and domestic savings (especially in the public sector) impeded the full achievement of the desired manufacturing capacity. In addition to failing to raise public revenue as much as planned, the principal shortcomings in policy formulation and execution were an overvalued currency which necessitated exchange controls and distorted the allocation of resources, the continued reliance on price regulation, and the failure to reform adequately the State Economic Enterprises. Reliance on foreign aid was reduced, but more aid will still be required before sustained growth is achieved.

In spite of these shortcomings, substantial progress was accomplished during the First Plan without the inflationary pressures and other imbalances which characterized the 1950s. However, Turkey could be developed more rapidly if more appropriate policies were followed.     

Autopsy Reenactment – A Useful Technique in the Evaluation of Adhesive Tape Asphyxia

A 19‐year‐old woman was found dead with her face and head wrapped in plastic adhesive tape in a cupboard beside an opened helium cylinder. Despite the alleged presence of a suicide message on a social networking website, the unusual circumstances raised the possibility at the time of autopsy of either accidental death from sexual asphyxia or homicide. A carefully monitored reenactment demonstrated, however, that the type of commercial adhesive tape that had been used did not cause complete airway obstruction and that it was possible to wrap a considerable length of tape around the head and neck with the breath held. All of the features at autopsy were, therefore, compatible with self‐infliction. Asphyxial death was attributed to the combined effects of smothering from tape and anoxia from helium, an extremely rare combination in young females.