The American journal of managed care
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To assess long-term adherence to oral hypoglycemic agents (OHAs) and determine if adherence affects total health care expenditures of reactive vs preventive services. ⋯ Increasing adherence provides an opportunity to improve CMS quality ratings. Our finding that adherence does not affect the financial burden of disease might be explained by the increased costs of preventive medication and increased comorbidity burden of these patients. Low adherence to OHAs encourages clinicians to be more proactive in ensuring that prescription medications are refilled regularly. By emphasizing equitable diabetes education and tailoring quality initiatives that minimize racial disparities, adherence can be better achieved.
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To evaluate the effectiveness of a pilot smoking cessation service in an emergency department (ED) clinical observation unit. ⋯ Given the small sample and high number of uncontactable patients, more research is needed to assess whether the trend toward increasing point-prevalence abstinence rate over time and the trend toward decreasing median number of cigarettes smoked are observed in a larger sample.