Medicare Data for the Geographic Variation Public Use File Form

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>> So this next section, we're talking about geographic variation in Medicare spending. So why are we concerned about geographic variation in Medicare spending? We want to know, does, if we spend more money, are we-- what's the bang for the buck? Are-- do we realize better outcomes or not? You send, you know, a patient off to see these docs, this set of docs, in the end, are they surviving? Is their quality of life better? Have you addressed, you know, whatever health concerns they had, taken care of them, alleviated them? Or, you know, you pick your favorite quality of life index and go after this. So we see this variation in Medicare spending and how do we justify it. If we don't see better outcomes, you know, it doesn't quite pass the sniff test, right? Something doesn't quite smell right about this. OK, so why are there higher costs associated with-- or that we see in certain areas of the country, and Florida is pretty suspect? OK, so our goal here is to review how Medicare adjusts