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A Weekly Health Policy Round-Up From Health Affairs
August 16, 2020
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THIS WEEK ON THE BLOG
Moving On From Telehealth-By-Desperation: What Will Make Telehealth Stick
By Lori Uscher-Pines (8/14/20)
While many providers have found telehealth ideal for improving access to care during the pandemic, telehealth visits are
already declining and may continue to decline. Without permanent policy changes, it is unclear if telehealth services will represent a significant proportion of US health care visits in the long run. Read More >>
Collaborative Approach To Public Goods Investments (CAPGI): Lessons Learned
From A Feasibility Study
By Len M. Nichols, Lauren A. Taylor, Paul Hughes-Cromwick, George Miller, Ani Turner, Corey Rhyan, and Richard M. Hamrick (8/13/20)
This post briefly describes the results of a one-year feasibility project (June 2019-May 2020) to establish whether our "Collaborative Approach to Public Goods Investments" would be interesting and feasible enough for real communities to implement and test. The simple answer is yes, but most communities need more technical assistance and time than we could provide in the spring of COVID-19. Read More >>
Community Resilience For COVID-19 And Beyond: Leveraging A System For Health Care And Social Services Integration
By Amanda L. Brewster, Mark Fleming, Margae Knox, and Anna Roth (8/12/20)
Following statewide shelter-in-place orders, California’s Contra Costa County leveraged cross-sector partnerships to reach out to vulnerable Medicaid enrollees to identify and help manage their
social and medical needs. This experience shows that health care and social service integration can promote resilience in the face of emerging public health threats.
Read More >>
After
COVID-19, A Payment Policy Reboot: Three Lessons From The Pandemic On How To Improve Value-Based Payment
By Amol S. Navathe and Joshua M. Liao (8/11/20)
Prior to COVID-19, payment policy had largely involved incremental changes. While positive, this approach has been insufficient on its own to move Medicare off its unsustainable course toward insolvency. COVID-19 provides a powerful wake-up call to address these issues. Read More >>
How To Ensure COVID-19 Doesn’t Delay Value-Based Care
By Soleil Shah and Bob Kocher (8/11/20)
The longer we proceed under pure fee-for-service models, the longer health care costs will spiral with limited improvements in quality. We suggest supporting the adoption and existence of accountable care organizations; creating opportunities for new value-based payments; and preventing the loss of value-based opportunities via private equity or large hospital network acquisitions.
Read More >>
How Lessons From Global Health Can Improve Health And The Response To COVID-19 In The US
By Charles B. Holmes and Eric P. Goosby (8/10/20)
Drawing from our experiences, we put forth seven lessons learned from efforts to protect global health that, if applied here at home, will help to reduce inequities and improve the health of all Americans. Read More >>
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CMS Approves NH 1332 Waiver, States Adopt Own Health Insurance Taxes
By Katie Keith (8/10/20)
On August 5, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Treasury Department approved New Hampshire’s waiver application to operate a state-based reinsurance program. This post also summarizes recent legislation enacted in Colorado and New Jersey to adopt state-level health insurance assessments. Read More >>
POLITICS
Democrats Will Adopt Their Health Care Platform Next Week—Here’s What It Says
By Billy Wynne (8/14/20)
The platform reiterates some hallmarks of Democratic philosophy while addressing current challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic and adding new details to long-sought policy goals, such as a public option. Read More >>
BEHAVIORAL HEALTH
How We Are Integrating Behavioral Health Into Primary Care
By Jennifer Zimmerman, Jill Miller, and Julie Geiler (8/12/20)
A Cincinnati, Ohio–based funder reports lessons learned from its grant to develop a patient-centered approach to integrating behavioral health into primary care practices. For example, the grantee, an integrated health care delivery system, gained physician buy-in and adoption, even though such integration is an enormous culture change. The grantee also identified a shortage of behavioral health consultants in the area and is working to develop a pipeline of potential candidates. Read More >>
PAYMENT
Getting It Done: Consensus On Surprise Billing Protections
By Jack Hoadley, Kevin Lucia, and Katie Keith (8-12-20)
Action to address surprise medical billing should transcend traditional bipartisan division. Failure to do so would be a true loss for consumers in the midst of a global pandemic.
Read More >>
MEDICAID
Medicaid Work Experiments Redux: The Administration’s Petition For US Supreme Court Review Of Gresham v Azar
By Sara Rosenbaum, Morgan Handley, and Maria Velasquez (8/13/20)
On February 14 a three-judge panel of the DC Circuit unanimously affirmed a lower court’s decision to vacate the federal government’s approval of Arkansas’s Medicaid work experiment. We analyze the Department of Justice’s request that the US Supreme Court review the DC Circuit’s decision. Read More >>
FOOD
A Different Approach To The FSMA Laboratory Accreditation Rule
By Robin E. Stombler (8/10/20)
Eight years after the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) of 2011, a
rule was proposed by the Food and Drug Administration outlining how the agency would establish a program for the testing of food by accredited laboratories. The proposed rule provides a narrow interpretation of the FSMA. This post examines what the law says and what is proposed, and suggests a new approach. Read More >>
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HOME HEALTH
Informal And Formal Home Care For Older Adults With Disabilities Increased, 2004–16
By Courtney H. Van Houtven, R. Tamara Konetzka, Elizabeth Taggert, and Norma B. Coe
Older adults and people with disabilities rely on a combination of formal (paid) and informal care—with the latter often provided by family members—to support them in their activities of daily living. Courtney
Van Houtven and coauthors examine trends in care from 2004 to 2016 in this DataWatch. Read More >>
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ORGANIZATION OF CAREFinancial Integration’s Impact On Care Delivery And Payment Reforms: A Survey Of Hospitals And Physician Practices
By Elliott S. Fisher, Stephen M. Shortell, A. James O’Malley, Taressa K. Fraze, Andrew Wood, Marisha Palm, Carrie H. Colla, Meredith B. Rosenthal, Hector P. Rodriguez, Valerie A. Lewis, Steven Woloshin, Nilay Shah, and Ellen Meara
Elliott Fisher and coauthors write that national data on what different types of health care organizations are actually doing to improve care are "largely missing from the existing literature." This article aims to address this knowledge gap to determine the relationship between financial integration of hospitals and physician practices and better quality, as measured by higher levels of adoption of care delivery and payment reforms. Read More >>
PHARMACEUTICALS & MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY
Medicare Part D Plans Rarely Cover Brand-Name Drugs When Generics Are
Available
By Stacie B. Dusetzina, Juliette Cubanski, Leonce Nshuti, Sarah True, Jack Hoadley, Drew Roberts, and Tricia Neuman
Stacie Dusetzina and coauthors write: "Recent press reports and other evidence suggest that Medicare Part D plans may be encouraging the use of brand-name drugs instead of generics. However, the scope of such practices is unclear." To explore this question, the authors examine brand-name and generic drug placements in Medicare formularies. Read More >>
NURSING HOMES
Trends In Hospitals And Skilled Nursing Facilities Sharing Medical Providers, 2008–16
By Elizabeth M. White, Cyrus M. Kosar, Momotazur Rahman, and Vincent
Mor
Elizabeth White and coauthors examine the growing phenomenon of clinicians focusing exclusively on caring for nursing home patients and becoming "SNFists." This specialization can reduce the coordination that naturally occurs when a clinician provides care in both hospital and skilled nursing facility (SNF) settings. Read More >>
WOMEN'S HEALTH
Compared With Other Countries, Women In The US Are More Likely Than Men To Forgo Medicines Because Of Cost
By Jamie R. Daw and Michael R. Law
Nonadherence to prescription medicines because of cost is associated with adverse clinical outcomes. Jamie Daw and Michael Law find that in eleven high-income countries, the largest disparities in nonadherence for women compared with men occur in the US, Canada, and Australia,
which are among the countries in which out-of-pocket spending for pharmaceuticals is the highest. Read More >>
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About Health Affairs
Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewed journal at 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.
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