To view this email as a web page, go to the link below, or copy and paste it into your browser's address window.
[link removed]


Having trouble viewing this email?
[link removed]
View online

The Commonwealth Fund Connection

A roundup of recent Fund publications, charts, multimedia, and other timely content.




August 20, 2021

[link removed]

[link removed]

[link removed]








COVID-19


[link removed]
Higher COVID-19 Vaccination Rates in Florida and Texas Could Have Saved 4,700 Lives
The relatively swift COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in many states have demonstrated the positive impact of having a large percentage of residents vaccinated. Researchers from the Yale School of Public Health, York University, and the Commonwealth Fund report findings from a new analysis showing that more than 4,700 deaths and 70,000 hospitalizations could have been averted in Florida and Texas if they had achieved the same vaccination coverage as the five states with the nation’s highest rates. As the Delta variant continues to spread, efforts to increase vaccination rates in these two populous states are critical to reducing the risk of hospitalization and death, the authors say.

[link removed]
READ MORE
COVID-19 Patients’ Advanced Care Plans Help Reduce Hospital Costs
Pennsylvania’s WellSpan Health adapted its approach to securing patients’ treatment preferences during the pandemic. As reported in a new
[link removed]
case study in NEJM Catalyst, COVID-19 patients who had advanced care plans were less likely to use the ICU and accrued lower costs than patients who did not. In a
[link removed]
feature article , the Commonwealth Fund’s Martha Hostetter, Sarah Klein, and Mekdes Tsega reported on how palliative care providers were deployed during the pandemic to help patients understand their conditions, sort through treatment options, and find relief from pain and other distressing symptoms.


Other Recent Publications


[link removed]
How Insurers Could Advance Health Equity
On To the Point, Georgetown University’s Katie Keith describes how health insurers could use the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to enact policies that better serve people of color. Among the potential changes she cites are using ACA requirements to hire midwives, doulas, and other providers who can meet the needs of people of color; training providers to work with a diverse patient population; and broadening cost-sharing protections to increase access to underused services like colorectal cancer screening.

[link removed]
READ MORE

[link removed]
A Better Option for Extending Medicaid Postpartum Coverage?
While a few states have obtained waivers to extend Medicaid’s postpartum coverage, the American Rescue Plan created a streamlined path to expand such coverage through state plan amendments, or SPAs. On To the Point, Laurie Zephyrin, M.D., Kay Johnson, Akeiisa Coleman, and Rachel Nuzum explain that for most states, SPAs offer advantages related to funding, the federal approval process, and administrative simplicity, and also can be used to improve coverage, benefits, and provider choice.

[link removed]
READ MORE

[link removed]
Are Surprise-Billing Laws Protecting Consumers?
State and federal policymakers have taken aim at surprise medical billing for out-of-network services by passing legislation to protect consumers from these unanticipated costs. What effect are these laws having? With Commonwealth Fund support, researchers from Columbia University and Weill Cornell Medical College explored the association between surprise-billing laws in Florida, California, and New York with prices paid to anesthesiologists in hospital outpatient departments and ambulatory surgery centers. Writing in JAMA Internal Medicine, the authors say that from 2014 to 2017, surprise-billing laws appeared to directly lower out-of-network prices and indirectly lower in-network prices.

[link removed]
READ MORE

[link removed]
Reducing Health Care Spending: Tools for States
Given the difficulties of enacting significant policy change at the federal level, major efforts to control growth in health care spending are likely to occur in individual states. In a new Commonwealth Fund report, Harvard University’s Michael Chernew, David Cutler, and Shivani Shah lay out the options available to states to control health care spending, paying particular attention to the role state health policy commissions can play. The report notes that states have a variety of strategies at their disposal, including actions to promote competition, reduce prices through regulation, design incentives to decrease use of low-value care, and impose spending targets.

[link removed]
READ MORE
How the Pharmacy Industry Can Help Make Prescription Drugs More Affordable
Pharmacies play a central role in the U.S. health care system: They are where most patients receive prescription drugs and, increasingly, vaccines. In the first of two issue briefs, Elizabeth Seeley and Surya Singh, M.D., explore
[link removed]
changes in the pharmaceutical industry over the past two decades and their impact on drug prices and spending. In the second brief, the authors explore policies related to the pharmacy sector that
[link removed]
affect spending and patients’ access to needed medications, highlighting actions the government can take to increase purchasing efficiency and ensure patients have access to quality pharmaceutical care.


How Will Federal Drug-Pricing Reforms Affect Medicaid?
The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) recommends that manufacturers of “accelerated-approval” drugs pay state Medicaid programs higher rebates for those drugs until their clinical benefit has been proven. Accelerated approval permits faster access to new drugs for treating serious health conditions. In the first of two blog posts, Georgetown University’s Edwin Park explains why
[link removed]
implementing MACPAC’s recommendations for accelerated-approval drugs is a good idea. In the second post, Park
[link removed]
explores the implications of proposed drug-pricing reforms — including allowing Medicare to directly negotiate prices with drug manufacturers — for the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program, which significantly lowers drug costs for states and the federal government.



[link removed]
Are Medigap Plans with Nontraditional Benefits a Good Choice for Beneficiaries?
A small number of Medigap plans offer benefits not covered under traditional Medicare, like vision, dental, and hearing services. Health policy analysts Riaz Ali and Lesley Hellow find that the number of Medigap plans that provide access to these additional benefits has been declining. Moreover, only a few plan types are offering them. Ali and Hellow question whether Medigap plans should be encouraged to provide broader access to nontraditional benefits, noting that “lack of coverage for these benefits in traditional Medicare can increase beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket spending and limit access to these important services.”

[link removed]
READ MORE

[link removed]
Medical Respite Care Offers a Pathway to Health and Housing for People Experiencing Homelessness
The impending end of the housing eviction ban under the COVID-19 public health emergency makes it even more important to find ways to meet the medical and social needs of people experiencing homelessness. In the latest in a series describing models of care for high-need, high-cost patients, Douglas McCarthy and Lisa Waugh explore how the National Health Foundation has leveraged medical respite care in southern California. Medical respite programs offer safe and comfortable accommodations, intensive care management, and supportive services to help people experiencing homelessness recuperate following a hospitalization and move into stable housing.

[link removed]
READ MORE

[link removed]
Why Policymakers Should Use Audited Financial Statements to Assess Health Systems’ Financial Health
Policymakers often rely on income-related metrics of the hospital facility alone as reported in the Medicare Cost Report to inform policy decisions. Yet, this approach provides only a limited view of a hospital’s financial health. In the latest issue of the Journal of Health Care Finance, Commonwealth Fund grantees Nancy Kane and Robert Berenson and colleagues identify a broader range of policy-relevant indicators of hospital financial health than those reported in an income statement. They derive these indicators by standardizing information provided in audited financial statements (AFSs). A national database of AFSs with standardized reporting would be an important tool for more informed and socially beneficial policymaking, the authors say.

[link removed]
READ MORE

[link removed]
A Call for Improved Data Collection on the Long-Term Services and Supports Needs of Working-Age Adults with Disabilities
Only about 10 percent of the estimated 14 million adults in the United States who need long-term services and supports (LTSS) reside in nursing homes or other institutional settings. The remaining 90 percent reside in the community, and nearly half of those are working-age adults. The sudden disruption by the pandemic of LTSS for community-dwelling adults has heightened concern about the dearth of information on them — particularly those ages 18–64. The Commonwealth Fund’s Corinne Lewis and coauthor Christina Wu write on Health Affairs’ “Grantwatch” that as the demand for LTSS grows over the next two decades, federal and state governments will be challenged to identify and meet these needs without better data.

[link removed]
READ MORE





Affordable, quality health care. For everyone.

[link removed]
Manage Profile |
[link removed]
Manage Subscriptions |
[link removed]
Privacy policy |
[link removed]
Unsubscribe
Add
mailto:[email protected]?omnicid=CFC2012270&[email protected]
[email protected] to your address book [
[link removed]
vCard ]


2021 (c) The Commonwealth Fund


THE COMMONWEALTH FUND | One E 75th St, New York, NY 10021 United States | Phone: 212.606.3800










----------------------------------------

This email was sent by:
THE COMMONWEALTH FUND
One E 75th St
New York, NY, 10021, United States

We respect your right to privacy - visit the following URL to view our policy.
( [link removed] )

----------------------------------------

Visit the following URL to manage your subscriptions.
( [link removed] )

Visit the following URL to update your profile.
( [link removed] )

Visit the following URL to unsubscribe.
( [link removed] )