Preview

In one paper about organization of care, Brian E. McGarry and coauthors found no clear evidence that discharge from a skilled nursing facility after Medicare coverage expires puts patients at increased risk of hospitalization or death. In another, Anaeze Offodile and coauthors provide an overview of private equity acquisitions of acute care hospitals from 2003 to 2017.

Offodile will join Alan on tomorrow’s episode of A Health Podyssey to discuss the role of private equity investment in hospitals.

Several authors discuss pharmaceuticals, including Ameet Sarpatwari and colleagues who examined pricing trends for three classes of widely used diabetes drugs, as well as Aayan Patel and coauthors, who investigated recent trends in generic drug prices.

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To read all of these articles, and more, visit the May 2021 issue and subscribe to Health Affairs.

Health Affairs Blog features two new posts by Katie Keith on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' 2022 Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters Rule. The first post addresses requirements specific to the exchanges, qualified health plans, medical loss ratio requirements, the coverage of essential health benefits, special enrollment periods, and reporting of prescription drug information by pharmacy benefit managers. The second post summarizes the final changes to the risk adjustment program.

Also on the blog, John R. Lumpkin and coauthors argue that now, more than ever, it is crucial that we use language that speaks to the realities of peoples’ lives and illuminates, rather than obscures, our shared understanding of and responsibility to act on all the factors that drive health.

Health Affairs is continuing our Elevating Voices series in May to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander American Heritage Month. Each day, in this newsletter and on our social media channels, we will highlight an Asian American or Pacific Islander who has contributed to the health policy community.

Today, we highlight Ashish K. Jha, an author of several Health Affairs papers. In a 2011 article about hospital quality and patient demographics, Jha wrote that as the US "improve[s] hospital care using value-based purchasing principles, we will need to help hospitals improve quality and efficiency simultaneously and to monitor the results of their efforts, so that we do not inadvertently worsen disparities in care."

Today is the first day of Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week. Every day this week we will share past Health Affairs content about maternal mental health in this newsletter and on our social media channels. We will dive deeper into this important topic in our October 2021 theme issue on Perinatal Mental Health.

In recent years, studies published in Health Affairs have examined expanded access to insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act, which includes vital mental health care. In a September 2020 article, Jamie Daw and coauthors found that low-income women in states that expanded Medicaid experienced a 10.1-percentage-point decrease in insurance churn across the preconception, delivery, and postpartum time points relative to those in nonexpansion states.

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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