How have hospitalization rates, treatments, and outcomes for atrial fibrillation changed among Medicare beneficiaries between 1999 and 2013?
Despite increased hospitalization and use of costly inpatient therapies for atrial fibrillation, clinical outcomes including mortality and readmission improved significantly from 1999 to 2013 among Medicare beneficiaries.
Between 1999 and 2013, among Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries, patients were hospitalized more frequently and treated with more costly inpatient therapies such as AF catheter ablation, but this finding was associated with improved outcomes, including lower rates of in-hospital mortality, 30-day readmission, 30-day mortality, and 1-year mortality.
Freeman et al. (2017) studied this question.