Health care coverage protects individuals against the financial risk that might result from spending on health care services. In the United States, coverage may take the form of insurance offered by private companies and made available to individuals through employers or purchased directly. The government also provides coverage for certain populations via programs such as Medicare or Medicaid. RAND research on health care coverage dates from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment (HIE). Conducted in the 1970s and early 1980s, the HIE remains the only long-term, experimental study of cost sharing and its effect on health care utilization and spending, quality of care, and health. Since then, RAND studies have examined multiple dimensions of coverage, including the effects of premium costs on health care use, the cost and potential health effects of new insurance products such as high-deductible health plans, the challenges faced by small businesses in providing coverage to employees, the groups most at risk for being uninsured, state experiments with insuring the uninsured, coverage for behavioral health, and coverage for prescription drugs.
This survey of 273 homeless youth indicates that, despite one-third meeting criteria for behavioral health problems such as PTSD, depression, or substance use problems, only about half of those meeting criteria reported a need for services.
New opioid prescriptions decreased among higher-risk patients who used benzodiazepines from 2010 to 2015, suggesting that the rapid increase in opioid-related deaths is primarily associated with factors other than physicians writing new opioid prescriptions.
Helping formerly homeless people identify members of their social network who trigger alcohol and other drug (AOD) use may motivate them to reduce high-risk AOD use in the transition to permanent housing.
Regulations on medical marijuana (MM) advertising—similar to those for tobacco and alcohol—may mitigate negative consequences of MM on adolescents.
The number of Medicaid recipients receiving medication to treat opioid abuse increased sharply in the years after approval of a new drug, but the increase was smaller in poorer counties & areas with larger populations of black and Hispanic residents.
While any opioid prescription carries some risk, a subset of prescriptions is particularly risky: identifying potentially inappropriate prescribing (PIP) through state-level online prescription monitoring programs could help reduce PIP.
This paper provides guidance to researchers on how to systematically involve stakeholder groups in their research, how to identify which stakeholders to involve, what roles they should play, and which modes of engagement are optimal.
Through the Comprehensive Primary Care (CPC) and Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) programs, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has encouraged primary care practices to invest in "comprehensive primary care" capabilities. To help CMS design alternative payment models (APMs) that reimburse primary care practices for these capabilities, the authors developed and piloted a method for estimating related practice expenses.
Homeless young adults were less likely to complete an alcohol and other drug and risky sex prevention program if they had slept outside or received the program in an urban setting.
This study suggests that either treatment may not be delivered equitably or that patient preference may be an important factor in determining who gets what treatment.
This article describes preferences for survey instruments on health-related quality of life and subjective well-being among adults with spinal cord injury, and compares perspectives on the instruments between the United States and the United Kingdom.
An integrated approach to purchasing health care for U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs could have important implications for access, quality, and costs but could face legislative, policy, or contractual challenges.
The economics of integrative oncology are problematic because of the lack of good studies, the lack of historic incentives for efficiency, and the high cost of cancer care and its financial toxicity on patients. However, these problems can be overcome, with help from one good economic evaluation at a time.
Local health departments report improved capacities when using the Getting to Outcomes approach.
Relations between PTSD symptom clusters and PTSD symptoms were examined with respect to general distress and physiological arousal.
Medicare-certified hospitals are required to submit an annual cost report to a Medicare Administrative Contractor. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) maintains the cost report data in the Healthcare Provider Cost Reporting Information System (HCRIS).The RAND Hospital Data tool is an effort to enhance CMS HCRIS data to make them more useful and accessible to a broad audience, and to provide insights into the hospital industry.
On May 31, 2018, the RAND Corporation convened a Technical Expert Panel (TEP) to gather input on analyses that could be conducted to further enhance the Medicare Advantage (MA) and Part D Contract Star Ratings program.
The recent increase in heroin deaths is primarily fueled by the reformulation of OxyContin.
In dealing with the opioid crisis, supply-side policies that consider the full market (both prescription opioids as well as heroin and fentanyl), if coupled with effective treatment, are likely to be the most effective.
Access to external funding and staff support are two important factors for the sustainability of substance use disorder treatment provision within primary care clinics.
