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The Connection: Mental Health Care Experiences of Older Black and Latinx Adults; Addressing Drivers of Health; Closing Gaps in Primary Care; and More
| From | The Commonwealth Fund <[email protected]> |
| Subject | The Connection: Mental Health Care Experiences of Older Black and Latinx Adults; Addressing Drivers of Health; Closing Gaps in Primary Care; and More |
| Date | August 19, 2022 4:40 PM |
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The Commonwealth Fund Connection
A roundup of recent Fund publications, charts, multimedia, and other timely content.
August 19, 2022
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
A Fall COVID-19 Booster Campaign Could Prevent 160,000 U.S. Deaths
A fall COVID-19 booster campaign could prevent as many as 160,000 deaths and more than 1.7 million hospitalizations, all while averting $109 billion in direct medical costs, according to a Commonwealth Fund study. To meet these goals, however, Congress must first approve additional vaccination funding and the Biden administration must expand booster eligibility.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
How Out-of-Pocket Costs Affect Black and Latinx Medicare Beneficiaries
“I think after working to get your Medicare, at that point you should be able to get your care and it should be affordable.” That was one of the sentiments expressed during focus groups with older Black and Latinx Medicare beneficiaries held by the public opinion research firm PerryUndem with Commonwealth Fund support. While Medicare offers significant financial protections, many Black and Latinx beneficiaries say they face high out-of-pocket costs that cause them to skip or delay care. Read more about what these older adults had to say, including the kind of policy changes they'd like to see.
[link removed]
READ MORE
The Dose Podcast Encore: Arriving at More Equitable Health Policy
While The Dose podcast takes a short break to plan for the season ahead, we’re revisiting some of the most-listened-to episodes including host Shanoor Seervai’s
[link removed]
conversation with Jamila Michener. An associate professor at Cornell University, Michener has developed a tool to help lawmakers identify when and how they should think about racism when they design social programs like Medicaid. The goal is to make more equitable health policy choices.
[link removed]
Reducing Diabetes Disparities Through Health Insurance Reforms
Affordability is a serious barrier to diabetes care, especially for Black and Hispanic people, who are hospitalized at higher rates than other groups because of complications from the disease. On To the Point, Georgetown University researchers look at how states and state-based marketplaces are trying to mitigate the disproportionate impact that diabetes has on communities of color by reducing treatment costs and increasing quality of care.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
How Older Black and Latinx Adults Experience Mental Health Care
Older Black and Latinx adults in the U.S. face many challenges in getting mental health care when they need it. These include lack of access to affordable and culturally appropriate care, discrimination, and taboos around seeking treatment. On To the Point, the Commonwealth Fund’s Shanoor Seervai and Arnav Shah share insights from focus groups and interviews to learn about their experiences with unmet mental health care needs, their attitudes toward seeking treatment, and policy changes that could strengthen mental health care access and quality.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Congress Responds to the Surge in Mental Health and Substance Use Problems
Amid a mental health and substance use crisis exacerbated by the pandemic and increasing gun violence, Congress is taking steps toward bolstering behavioral health care. Josh LaRosa of the Wynne Health Group and Rachel Nuzum of the Commonwealth Fund provide an overview of recent legislative activity, including passage of the first U.S. gun safety law in more than 30 years, which includes pediatric mental health grants, investments in suicide prevention, and other behavioral health measures.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
How New Models of Care Are Seeking to Address Drivers of Health
For more than a decade, the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation has tested new, potentially transformative models of paying for and delivering health care, including many that address important social drivers of health, such as access to reliable transportation and nutritious meals. In a new issue brief, Commonwealth Fund researchers synthesize evidence over the past decade to understand how these pilot programs and initiatives attempt to meet patients’ needs and what incentives are in place for health care systems and providers.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Recommendations for Closing Critical Gaps in the U.S. Primary Care System
When the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requested feedback in June on what it can do to strengthen primary care — the backbone of any high-performing health system — the Commonwealth Fund responded, highlighting three key evidence-based strategies that build on recommendations made by some of the nation’s leading health care experts. A post on To the Point explains how those recommendations could close critical gaps in the U.S. health system, improve how the nation responds to public health crises, and promote comprehensive primary care.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
How Insurers Pay Providers Affects Patients’ Health Care Access, Equity, and Costs
The different approaches that Medicaid, Medicare, and commercial insurers use to set provider payment rates have resulted in growing health care disparities. According to Manatt Health analysts, Medicaid fee-for-service payments for physician services are nearly 30 percent below Medicare payments, which in turn are well below commercial insurance rates. These data, they say, raise important questions: How do payment differences affect access to care? What can they tell us about health disparities? And do they influence who provides care?
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Americans Die Younger, International Comparison Shows
Although the U.S. spends more on health care than any other nation, Americans have a shorter average lifespan, and a higher rate of preventable deaths, compared to people in many high- and middle-income countries. According to a new Commonwealth Fund study, even the states with the longest life expectancy at birth have shorter average lifespans than many other countries. The researchers note that countries with longer average lifespans guarantee access to health care through universal coverage.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Without Congressional Action, Few Options for Protecting Reproductive Health Rights
In a post-Roe world, it seems the Biden administration has limited options for protecting reproductive health rights. According to Lauren Testa of Wynne Health and the Commonwealth Fund’s Rachel Nuzum, President Biden’s executive order following the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling provides a “patchwork solution at best” and will not fully offset the impact of the Dobbs decision. In their post for To the Point, the authors say congressional action will be needed to ensure nationwide access to reproductive health services, including contraception and abortion care.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
How the Inflation Reduction Act Will Lower Americans’ Health Care Costs
Millions of Americans struggle to pay out-of-pocket health care costs and insurance premiums. On To the Point, Commonwealth Fund experts show how the Inflation Reduction Act — recently signed into law by President Biden — will help make health care more affordable and accessible for many people by addressing two key sources of health care costs.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Will the Affordable Care Act Survive Its Latest Legal Challenge?
In late July, a federal district court in Texas heard arguments in Kelley v. Becerra, a lawsuit that imperils one of the ACA’s most popular and well-used provisions — the requirement that insurers and health plans offer free preventive care. More than 152 million people with private health coverage benefitted from this provision in 2020 alone. Learn why the case’s outcome has implications for every insured person in the U.S.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
New Antidiscrimination Rule Would Restore Civil Rights Protections in Health Care
A new rule proposed by the Biden administration would undo several Trump-era policies that rolled back civil rights protections in the ACA, including protections for LGBTQ people. Health law experts Katie Keith and Timothy Jost explain how the new rule, once finalized, could advance health equity and combat discrimination in health care, especially with respect to sexual orientation and gender identity.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Are New Drug Patents Protecting Innovation or Profits?
Patents for prescription drugs are supposed to ensure that manufacturers enjoy fair market exclusivity for producing innovative products that help patients. But as reported in Health Affairs, drugmakers commonly leverage patent filings to delay the entry of generic competitors and extend their profits. Commonwealth Fund–supported researchers examined key patents covering brand-name drugs approved in 2019 and 2020, evaluating the timing of patent filings, the features of drugs covered by patents, and whether similar patents were sought in other countries.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Can Amazon’s Health Care Gamble Succeed Despite the Odds?
Amazon’s recent acquisition of One Medical for $3.9 billion signals the tech giant is confident it can transform primary care in the U.S. But while Amazon has tremendous resources — as well as a proven ability to turn economic sectors upside down — the company faces enormous challenges in blazing a new path through America’s huge tangled health care sector. In Harvard Business Review, the Commonwealth Fund’s David Blumenthal, M.D., and Lovisa Gustafsson ask if profit-driven entrepreneurship and bottom-up innovation can finally take U.S. health care from worst to first.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Empowering Nurses to Spark Innovative Health Care Solutions
Nurses are natural innovators. Because they spend so much time around patients, they are uniquely positioned to come up with creative inventions, workarounds, and solutions to problems they encounter on the job. In a new interview with Transforming Care, Hiyam Nadel, R.N., of Massachusetts General Hospital talks about a program that draws on nurses’ problem-solving skills and closeness to patients to improve care.
[link removed]
READ MORE
Diverse Nursing Workforces Associated with Lower Rates of Complications During Childbirth
Many people have called for efforts to build a more racially and ethnically diverse health care workforce as a way of reducing disparities in maternal health outcomes. A new study comparing diversity of the registered nurse workforce in each state to the rate of maternal complications found that people were at
[link removed]
lower risk for adverse outcomes during childbirth in states with more diverse nursing workforces. A Transforming Care feature profiles several programs that
[link removed]
show promise in reducing racial disparities in maternal health outcomes .
[link removed]
Male Physicians Earn More Than Female Physicians
A health care topic that garners little discussion is the gender pay gap between male and female physicians. For every dollar a male physician earns, a female physician earns only 74 cents — a wider gap than in most other occupations. While family obligations and bias play a role, as in other industries, the way we pay for health care also contributes, says the Commonwealth Fund’s Celli Horstman.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
New Law Will Help Protect Americans’ Health from Effects of Climate Change
Thanks to its climate change provisions, the newly passed Inflation Reduction Act may just be the most important piece of health care legislation since the Affordable Care Act. In STAT, Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal, M.D., highlights the deadly risks our warming planet poses to Americans’ health and our health care system — and why all our health care policies must include steps to address them.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
What Can the U.S. Learn from the U.K.’s Plan to Achieve a Net-Zero Carbon Emission Health Care System?
The United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) is the world’s first health care system to commit to achieving net-zero carbon emissions, and it has developed a plan to do so by 2045. Along with her Commonwealth Fund colleagues, Emily Hough, former strategy director for NHS England and a Harkness Fellow, describes the Greener NHS plan and how the U.S. health system could begin reducing its own carbon footprint.
[link removed]
READ MORE
Affordable, quality health care. For everyone.
[link removed]
Manage Profile |
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2022 (c) The Commonwealth Fund
THE COMMONWEALTH FUND | One E 75th St, New York, NY 10021 United States | Phone: 212.606.3800
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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] )
[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 19, 2022
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
A Fall COVID-19 Booster Campaign Could Prevent 160,000 U.S. Deaths
A fall COVID-19 booster campaign could prevent as many as 160,000 deaths and more than 1.7 million hospitalizations, all while averting $109 billion in direct medical costs, according to a Commonwealth Fund study. To meet these goals, however, Congress must first approve additional vaccination funding and the Biden administration must expand booster eligibility.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
How Out-of-Pocket Costs Affect Black and Latinx Medicare Beneficiaries
“I think after working to get your Medicare, at that point you should be able to get your care and it should be affordable.” That was one of the sentiments expressed during focus groups with older Black and Latinx Medicare beneficiaries held by the public opinion research firm PerryUndem with Commonwealth Fund support. While Medicare offers significant financial protections, many Black and Latinx beneficiaries say they face high out-of-pocket costs that cause them to skip or delay care. Read more about what these older adults had to say, including the kind of policy changes they'd like to see.
[link removed]
READ MORE
The Dose Podcast Encore: Arriving at More Equitable Health Policy
While The Dose podcast takes a short break to plan for the season ahead, we’re revisiting some of the most-listened-to episodes including host Shanoor Seervai’s
[link removed]
conversation with Jamila Michener. An associate professor at Cornell University, Michener has developed a tool to help lawmakers identify when and how they should think about racism when they design social programs like Medicaid. The goal is to make more equitable health policy choices.
[link removed]
Reducing Diabetes Disparities Through Health Insurance Reforms
Affordability is a serious barrier to diabetes care, especially for Black and Hispanic people, who are hospitalized at higher rates than other groups because of complications from the disease. On To the Point, Georgetown University researchers look at how states and state-based marketplaces are trying to mitigate the disproportionate impact that diabetes has on communities of color by reducing treatment costs and increasing quality of care.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
How Older Black and Latinx Adults Experience Mental Health Care
Older Black and Latinx adults in the U.S. face many challenges in getting mental health care when they need it. These include lack of access to affordable and culturally appropriate care, discrimination, and taboos around seeking treatment. On To the Point, the Commonwealth Fund’s Shanoor Seervai and Arnav Shah share insights from focus groups and interviews to learn about their experiences with unmet mental health care needs, their attitudes toward seeking treatment, and policy changes that could strengthen mental health care access and quality.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Congress Responds to the Surge in Mental Health and Substance Use Problems
Amid a mental health and substance use crisis exacerbated by the pandemic and increasing gun violence, Congress is taking steps toward bolstering behavioral health care. Josh LaRosa of the Wynne Health Group and Rachel Nuzum of the Commonwealth Fund provide an overview of recent legislative activity, including passage of the first U.S. gun safety law in more than 30 years, which includes pediatric mental health grants, investments in suicide prevention, and other behavioral health measures.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
How New Models of Care Are Seeking to Address Drivers of Health
For more than a decade, the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation has tested new, potentially transformative models of paying for and delivering health care, including many that address important social drivers of health, such as access to reliable transportation and nutritious meals. In a new issue brief, Commonwealth Fund researchers synthesize evidence over the past decade to understand how these pilot programs and initiatives attempt to meet patients’ needs and what incentives are in place for health care systems and providers.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Recommendations for Closing Critical Gaps in the U.S. Primary Care System
When the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requested feedback in June on what it can do to strengthen primary care — the backbone of any high-performing health system — the Commonwealth Fund responded, highlighting three key evidence-based strategies that build on recommendations made by some of the nation’s leading health care experts. A post on To the Point explains how those recommendations could close critical gaps in the U.S. health system, improve how the nation responds to public health crises, and promote comprehensive primary care.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
How Insurers Pay Providers Affects Patients’ Health Care Access, Equity, and Costs
The different approaches that Medicaid, Medicare, and commercial insurers use to set provider payment rates have resulted in growing health care disparities. According to Manatt Health analysts, Medicaid fee-for-service payments for physician services are nearly 30 percent below Medicare payments, which in turn are well below commercial insurance rates. These data, they say, raise important questions: How do payment differences affect access to care? What can they tell us about health disparities? And do they influence who provides care?
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Americans Die Younger, International Comparison Shows
Although the U.S. spends more on health care than any other nation, Americans have a shorter average lifespan, and a higher rate of preventable deaths, compared to people in many high- and middle-income countries. According to a new Commonwealth Fund study, even the states with the longest life expectancy at birth have shorter average lifespans than many other countries. The researchers note that countries with longer average lifespans guarantee access to health care through universal coverage.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Without Congressional Action, Few Options for Protecting Reproductive Health Rights
In a post-Roe world, it seems the Biden administration has limited options for protecting reproductive health rights. According to Lauren Testa of Wynne Health and the Commonwealth Fund’s Rachel Nuzum, President Biden’s executive order following the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling provides a “patchwork solution at best” and will not fully offset the impact of the Dobbs decision. In their post for To the Point, the authors say congressional action will be needed to ensure nationwide access to reproductive health services, including contraception and abortion care.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
How the Inflation Reduction Act Will Lower Americans’ Health Care Costs
Millions of Americans struggle to pay out-of-pocket health care costs and insurance premiums. On To the Point, Commonwealth Fund experts show how the Inflation Reduction Act — recently signed into law by President Biden — will help make health care more affordable and accessible for many people by addressing two key sources of health care costs.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Will the Affordable Care Act Survive Its Latest Legal Challenge?
In late July, a federal district court in Texas heard arguments in Kelley v. Becerra, a lawsuit that imperils one of the ACA’s most popular and well-used provisions — the requirement that insurers and health plans offer free preventive care. More than 152 million people with private health coverage benefitted from this provision in 2020 alone. Learn why the case’s outcome has implications for every insured person in the U.S.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
New Antidiscrimination Rule Would Restore Civil Rights Protections in Health Care
A new rule proposed by the Biden administration would undo several Trump-era policies that rolled back civil rights protections in the ACA, including protections for LGBTQ people. Health law experts Katie Keith and Timothy Jost explain how the new rule, once finalized, could advance health equity and combat discrimination in health care, especially with respect to sexual orientation and gender identity.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Are New Drug Patents Protecting Innovation or Profits?
Patents for prescription drugs are supposed to ensure that manufacturers enjoy fair market exclusivity for producing innovative products that help patients. But as reported in Health Affairs, drugmakers commonly leverage patent filings to delay the entry of generic competitors and extend their profits. Commonwealth Fund–supported researchers examined key patents covering brand-name drugs approved in 2019 and 2020, evaluating the timing of patent filings, the features of drugs covered by patents, and whether similar patents were sought in other countries.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Can Amazon’s Health Care Gamble Succeed Despite the Odds?
Amazon’s recent acquisition of One Medical for $3.9 billion signals the tech giant is confident it can transform primary care in the U.S. But while Amazon has tremendous resources — as well as a proven ability to turn economic sectors upside down — the company faces enormous challenges in blazing a new path through America’s huge tangled health care sector. In Harvard Business Review, the Commonwealth Fund’s David Blumenthal, M.D., and Lovisa Gustafsson ask if profit-driven entrepreneurship and bottom-up innovation can finally take U.S. health care from worst to first.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
Empowering Nurses to Spark Innovative Health Care Solutions
Nurses are natural innovators. Because they spend so much time around patients, they are uniquely positioned to come up with creative inventions, workarounds, and solutions to problems they encounter on the job. In a new interview with Transforming Care, Hiyam Nadel, R.N., of Massachusetts General Hospital talks about a program that draws on nurses’ problem-solving skills and closeness to patients to improve care.
[link removed]
READ MORE
Diverse Nursing Workforces Associated with Lower Rates of Complications During Childbirth
Many people have called for efforts to build a more racially and ethnically diverse health care workforce as a way of reducing disparities in maternal health outcomes. A new study comparing diversity of the registered nurse workforce in each state to the rate of maternal complications found that people were at
[link removed]
lower risk for adverse outcomes during childbirth in states with more diverse nursing workforces. A Transforming Care feature profiles several programs that
[link removed]
show promise in reducing racial disparities in maternal health outcomes .
[link removed]
Male Physicians Earn More Than Female Physicians
A health care topic that garners little discussion is the gender pay gap between male and female physicians. For every dollar a male physician earns, a female physician earns only 74 cents — a wider gap than in most other occupations. While family obligations and bias play a role, as in other industries, the way we pay for health care also contributes, says the Commonwealth Fund’s Celli Horstman.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
New Law Will Help Protect Americans’ Health from Effects of Climate Change
Thanks to its climate change provisions, the newly passed Inflation Reduction Act may just be the most important piece of health care legislation since the Affordable Care Act. In STAT, Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal, M.D., highlights the deadly risks our warming planet poses to Americans’ health and our health care system — and why all our health care policies must include steps to address them.
[link removed]
READ MORE
[link removed]
What Can the U.S. Learn from the U.K.’s Plan to Achieve a Net-Zero Carbon Emission Health Care System?
The United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) is the world’s first health care system to commit to achieving net-zero carbon emissions, and it has developed a plan to do so by 2045. Along with her Commonwealth Fund colleagues, Emily Hough, former strategy director for NHS England and a Harkness Fellow, describes the Greener NHS plan and how the U.S. health system could begin reducing its own carbon footprint.
[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=CFC2138135&[email protected]
[email protected] to your address book [
[link removed]
vCard ]
2022 (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.
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