Insurance, Medicare & Medicaid

The State-University Partnership Learning Network (SUPLN) is an ongoing collaboration that works to facilitate peer-to-peer learning and dialogue among state-university partnerships through various ways including hosting meetings and bi-monthly web conferences with the goal of improving the cost and quality of care of the Medicaid program.

With support from the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), AcademyHealth’s Evidence-Informed State Health Policy Institute is developing a research agenda and action-oriented research toolkit that identifies and prioritizes patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) questions related to the impacts of long COVID.

With a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute Eugene Washington Engagement Award, the Evidence-Informed State Health Policy Institute will bring together stakeholders to distill the latest PCORI-supported findings and identify strategies for dissemination to improve care coordination for children with special health care needs.

AcademyHealth was awarded a PCORI Convening Award that will bring the Medicaid Medical Directors Network together to identify research and translation gaps that can help promote dissemination and implementation uptake.

Experimentation in the Medicaid program creates an opportunity for states to modify their Medicaid programs to better meet enrollees’ health and social needs. Projects under the Research in Transforming Health and Healthcare Systems program examine Medicaid innovation, through Section 1115 Waivers or managed care organizations.

Enrolling in Medicaid immediately following incarceration is an important tool to support successful reentry, particularly for individuals with opioid use disorder and other behavioral health conditions. Many states have policies to suspend Medicaid during incarceration and then reactivate upon release, but little is known about how these policies are implemented and how they are coordinated across agencies (Medicaid and Corrections). AcademyHealth's new project is hoping to identify barriers and facilitators related to linking incarcerated individuals to Medicaid to support reactivation and enrollment of benefits.

AcademyHealth's Evidence-Informed State Health Policy Institute leads this learning collaborative of Medicaid waiver evaluation researchers aimed at examining the policy questions, and study designs, methodologies, data sources and metrics used in Medicaid waiver initiatives.

With support from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Foundation, AcademyHealth’s Evidence-Informed State Health Policy Institute in collaboration with the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill is assessing syphilis testing among pregnant Medicaid beneficiaries as well as rates of STI testing of state Medicaid beneficiaries on PrEP.

With support from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), Rutgers University and the University of Pittsburgh, in collaboration with AcademyHealth, aim to examine the potential of permanent supportive housing programs to mitigate health disparities among Medicaid enrollees experiencing homelessness.

Access to quality health care systems is essential to good health, and it is not possible without affordable, quality health insurance coverage. These policy-relevant analyses from the Research in Transforming Health and Healthcare Systems program inform strategies to ensure access to high-quality, affordable health care and insurance coverage.