Insurance, Medicare & Medicaid

This ‘plain language summary’ considers a recent commentary from Zirui Song, M.D., Ph.D., in HSR, an official journal of AcademyHealth, that offers a broad review of the state of the science on Accountable Care Organizations, including a brief discussion of three new studies also published in the August issue.

New research published in JAMA reveals that Black enrollees were considerably less likely than white enrollees to be treated with medications for opioid use disorder and were less likely to have continuity of such treatment. Results are based on data from the Medicaid Outcomes Distributed Research Network (MODRN), supported by AcademyHealth.

The population dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid was one of the hardest hit by COVID-19. Arielle Mir of Arnold Ventures, an AcademyHealth organizational member, explains how policymakers are urgently seeking solutions to improve their care and experience, but better data infrastructure and research are needed to achieve meaningful change.

As the Annual Research Meeting draws to a close, this final post in our series highlighting how AcademyHealth is #MoreThanAMeeting describes our year-round work with several learning networks.

AcademyHealth Director Lauren Gerlach and Mona Shah of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation discuss the importance of rigorous evaluation of Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration waivers.

A new study published in HSR, an official journal of AcademyHealth, found that while the use of new cancer therapies did result in noteworthy improvements in lung cancer survival rates, Medicare spending increased substantially, raising concerns about the financial burden of these treatments.