Access to health care usually refers to the ease with which an individual can gain entry to or receive needed medical services. RAND research addresses multiple dimensions of access, including: financial access, usually facilitated through health insurance; potential access, usually aided by having a regular health care provider; and realized access, when an individual actually receives needed medical care. Many RAND studies have also examined disparities in access across different population groups and the effect of disparities on health.
The effect of the 2018 CHRONIC Care Act and how it may evolve before implementation begins in 2020 remains uncertain as we wait to see how MA plans will interpret eligibility criteria and services offered without any additional allotted funding.
The present study examined the association between religiosity and medical mistrust in a sample of Latino adults attending Catholic and Pentecostal churches in Long Beach, CA.
This article reviews interventions that have been tested in congregations with majority Latino populations in the U.S.
The aim of this study was to determine whether patients undergoing surgery on weekends are more likely to die or experience a major complication compared with patients undergoing surgery on a weekday.
Testimony submitted to the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs on April 10, 2019.
The Global Payment Program (GPP) seeks to improve health care for California's uninsured by using federal funds to make prospective payments to public health care systems for providing inpatient, outpatient, and nontraditional services. This report presents the final evaluation of the program. Through the GPP, public health care systems have put in place a variety of strategies and offered a wider range of services during its first three years.
Technology-enabled collaborative learning and capacity-building models connect generalist providers, often located in remote areas, with specialist teams that help train these providers so that they can deliver care for conditions that generalists might not otherwise feel adequately prepared to handle. This report focuses on the quality of evidence for the effectiveness of such models and describes ways to improve measurement of effectiveness.
Despite telehealth's potential to improve access to care, it is underutilized by safety-net providers, including Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), due to a range of policy, organizational, and logistical barriers. This research facilitates state-to-state learning to inform both Medicaid policy and Medicare policy going forward and provide lessons learned for FQHCs interested in starting or expanding telehealth programs.
Despite the increased ratio of child psychiatrists per children over the past decade, a shortage remains, particularly in places with lower levels of income and education.
The state of California has taken the lead in developing metrics, standards, and a methodology for collecting the needed data for monitoring timely access to health care, but health plans have faced numerous challenges in collecting and reporting this information. This report focuses on specific concerns with the methodology; the authors use a multipronged approach to describe and document these issues and identify and assess potential solutions.
This paper presents findings from a qualitative study examining the impact of the Medicaid Balancing Incentive Program. The analysis in this paper examines factors associated with rural disparities in access to home and community-based services.
The California campaign increased service use by leading more individuals to interpret symptoms of distress as indicating a need for treatment.
In a survey of community health center medical directors in 9 Medicaid expansion states and DC, nearly 60% reported difficulty obtaining new specialist visits and multiple access barriers on behalf of their patients.
The 33 studies reviewed identify multiple workforce-related challenges for families seeking treatment for children with autism spectrum disorder-including lack of primary care providers to serve these children, lack of specialty providers, and sociodemographic and geographic disparities in access to ASD services.
Beneficiaries who are dually enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid are less likely to be enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans that perform well in the MA Star Rating program than non–dually enrolled beneficiaries. The authors identify the types of services that MA plans implement to meet the needs of dually enrolled and other high-cost, high-need beneficiaries, as well as the types of resources needed to implement these services.
This article presents a comprehensive theory describing how integrating structures, processes, and people within and across organizations might lead to integrated patient care and improved outcomes, including technical quality, efficiency, patient health, and both patient and provider experience.
Since 1965, Federally Qualified Health Centers have provided a safety net for the uninsured and major source of care to those enrolled in public health insurance programs. The distinguishing characteristic of the program is the concept of community governance in achieving the main objective to provide holistic, comprehensive, and culturally competent primary care to low-income and medically underserved areas.
This interim report presents preliminary implementation and impact evaluation findings for New York City's Connections to Care program, which seeks to expand access to mental health support for low-income New Yorkers through a task shifting model delivered by community-based organizations. This report also describes study methods and the baseline sample for the impact evaluation at the time of writing.
Many Los Angeles-area African American churches provide recovery supports and services for alcohol and other drug (AOD) use and actively connect individuals to formal AOD treatment.
Assesses children's health issues in Washington, D.C., including the health care delivery system and neighborhood health environments.
