Access to mental health services in the US remains difficult, even for those with insurance.
In the July 2023 issue of Health Affairs, Jane Zhu and her team of coauthors compare psychiatrist network breadth, a measure of the availability of psychiatric providers in an area that are considered "in network," across Medicare Advantage (MA), Medicaid managed care, and Affordable Care Act (ACA) plan markets.
Zhu and coauthors find that network breadth was narrower in MA than in Medicaid managed care and ACA plan markets.
They estimate that the share of narrow markets was 64.6 percent in the MA market, compared to about 40 percent in the Medicaid managed care and ACA plan markets.
On Tuesday, August 1, Health Affairs will host it’s first-ever virtual live recording of the popular podcast, A Health
Podyssey. The event will be combined with the Health Affairs Policy Spotlight event series. We hope you will join us on that day when our Editor-in-Chief, Alan Weil, welcomes Dr. Meena Seshamani, the Director of the Office of Medicare at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). They will discuss several crucial issues that are
coming to the forefront including:
Implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), with revised negotiation guidance coming summer
Recent significant policy changes related to Medicare Advantage
Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Jane Zhu from Oregon Health and Science University about a recent paper assessing psychiatrist network breadth across Medicare Advantage, Medicaid Managed Care Plans and Affordable Care Act plans in
2019.
Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewedjournalat the intersection of health, health care, and policy. Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal is available in print and online. Late-breaking
content is also found through healthaffairs.org, Health Affairs Today, and Health Affairs Sunday Update.
Project HOPE is a global health and humanitarian relief organization that places power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives across the globe. Project HOPE has published Health Affairs since 1981.
