News & Bulletins Archive
Hilltop Director of Special Studies Ian Stockwell, MA, gave a poster presentation at the Gerontological Society of America’s (GSA’s) 64th Annual Scientific Meeting, which was held November 18 through 22, 2011, in Boston, Massachusetts. This conference brought together more than 4,000 of the brightest in the field of aging for a combined 500 symposia, paper, and poster presentations. To view Stockwell’s poster, which describes Hilltop’s analysis of Maryland’s Money Follows the Person program, click here.
Hilltop staff made two presentations at the 27th National Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) Conference in Washington, DC, which took place from September 11 through 14, 2011.
Senior Policy Analyst Ian Stockwell, MA, gave a presentation with staff from the Maryland Department of Aging and the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. This presentation, entitled Driving HCBS Innovation through Data and Metrics, discussed HCBS beginnings and momentum including advocacy and costs, HCBS waivers, Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRCs), and Money Follows the Person (MFP); data and metrics to build community-based services; and using metrics to move forward. Stockwell focused on Hilltop’s research on utilization and expenditures of both institutional services and HCBS in Maryland, as well as on the Quality of Life Survey Hilltop conducted, to discuss how metrics were used and how they can be used going forward.
Director of Long-Term Services and Supports Policy and Research Cynthia H. Woodcock gave a presentation entitled The Evaluation of the New Jersey Care Partner Support Pilot Program: Preliminary Findings. Woodcock gave an overview of the pilot program and data collection; described profiles of care managers, care recipients, and caregivers; and discussed the project’s status and the next steps of the evaluation.
Three research works were presented at the National Institute of Mental Health’s 21st Conference on Mental Health Services Research, held in Washington DC, on July 27-28, 2011. Improving Inpatient Psychiatric Payment Using Modified APR-DRGs (authors: Donald Steinwachs, David Salkever, Norbert Goldfield, Anthony Lehman, Michael Kaminsky, Michael Abrams, Elizabeth Skinner, Maureen Fahey, Hamid Fakhraei) was a presentation which summarized findings from a study of the costs associated with inpatient psychiatric events, as well as correlates to those costs which might be used to engineer case-rate billing procedures. Imminent Enrollment Lapses in Medicaid after Psychiatric Hospitalizations in Young Adults (authors: Maryann Davis, Michael Abrams, Lawrence Wissow, Eric Slade) was a poster presentation on work that reviewed factors associated with Medicaid disenrollment in the wake of discharges from an inpatient psychiatric event for persons age 18-26, which used classification and regression tree (CART) and probit analyses to focus on the strongest predictors of such disenrollment. Effects of Medicaid Lapses on Young Adults’ Use of Outpatient Services after Inpatient Stays, (authors: Eric Slade, Larry Wissow, Maryann Davis, Michael Abrams) was a slide presentation on a review of correlates between Medicaid enrollment discontinuities and outpatient mental health service use and among young adults age 18-26 who experienced a inpatient psychiatric event. For more information, contact Hilltop Senior Research Analyst Michael Abrams.
Donna Folkemer, MA, director of Hilltop’s Hospital Community Benefit Program, was a panelist at a recent public forum sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, entitled Best Practices for Community Health Needs Assessment and Implementation Strategy Development: A Review of Scientific Methods, Current Practices, and Future Potential, on July 12, 2011, in Atlanta, Georgia. Folkemer participated on the panel, entitled Reporting and Oversight: State Level Oversight, with Lois Johnson from the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General and Gianfranco Pezzino from the Kansas Health Institute. Folkemer began by asking the audience to consider how best to create a public sector oversight role that can lead to desired outcomes for community health improvement. She noted that state approaches to reporting and oversight vary significantly and that there is not yet an evidence base to direct states as they define community benefit measures. She said that the Affordable Care Act is leading states to identify benchmarks of success as they design health insurance exchanges, health information technology systems, etc., stating that the same attention should be given to benchmarking in the community benefits arena. “Benchmarks are designed to measure the rate of change, and it will be important for states to find creative and practical ways to measure change in the practices of nonprofit hospitals to assure good community health outcomes,” Folkemer said.
The Hilltop Institute is pleased to announce the success of its fifth invitational symposium, Responding to Community Health Needs within the Framework of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which convened on June 28, 2011. To learn more about the speakers, view the presentations, and see the agenda, click here. To view the bulletin, click here.
The Hilltop Institute had a visible presence at this year’s AcademyHealth ARM, held June 11-14 in Seattle, Washington.
On June 11, Hilltop and the Department of Health Management and Policy at Saint Louis University co-sponsored a Community Benefit preconference. Hilltop Hospital Community Benefit Program Director Donna Folkemer, MA, spoke about current policy challenges for states, discussing issues for states to help inform the interpretation and implementation of Section 9007 of the Affordable Care Act, which is the subject of the program’s second issue brief, Hospital Community Benefits after the ACA: Building on State Experience. To view the presentation, clickhere.
On June 12, Hilltop Senior Policy Analyst Karen E. Johnson, MS, gave a poster presentation entitled Using Propensity Score Matching Techniques to Establish Treatment/Control Groups to Assess Medicare and Medicaid Service Use, which was also authored by Hilltop Director of Special Research and Development Anthony M. Tucker, PhD, and UMBC Assistant Professor Yi Huang, PhD. The poster described the use of a propensity score matching methodology to identify comparison groups among Medicare-Medicaid beneficiaries who received Medicaid-paid long-term services and supports (LTSS) via home and community-based (HCBS) waivers versus those who did not receive LTSS. This matching technique was used to establish comparable treatment/control pairs for subsequent analysis of cross-payer effects of providing Medicaid-paid LTSS on Medicare acute care resource use, and could be used more generally to strengthen policy analyses that are based on observational and/or administrative data.
On June 12, Hilltop Policy Analyst Laura Spicer gave a presentation at a session on Addressing Cost and Affordability in Public Programs: Implications for the Affordable Care Act. Her presentation, entitled Evaluating Small Group Employer Participation in New Mexico’s SCI Program, discussed findings from a Hilltop study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State Health Access Reform Evaluation (SHARE) initiative. The study identified factors associated with small group employer participation in New Mexico’s State Coverage Insurance (SCI) program.
On June 14, Hilltop Director of Medicaid Policy Studies David Idala, MA, gave a presentation at a session on outreach and enrollment that examined how states could reach newly eligible populations under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). His presentation, entitled Maryland’s Kids First Act: The Use of Tax Forms to Identify Medicaid/CHIP-Eligible Children, discussed the use of state income tax forms to identify children who are eligible for, but not enrolled in, Medicaid, and the lessons learned so far from the Maryland Kids First outreach initiative that could help states as they implement the ACA.
Finally, Hilltop Director of Long-Term Services and Supports Cynthia H. Woodcock, MBA, and Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Deputy Secretary of Finance and former Hilltop Executive Director Charles J. Milligan, Jr., JD, MPH, presented the keynote address, Rebalancing Long-Term Services and Supports: Progress to Date and a Research Agenda for the Future, at this year’s Long-Term Care Colloquium on June 14. Woodcock and Milligan presented highlights from their commissioned paper focusing on the success, to date, of rebalancing long-term care toward community settings and the implications of provisions in the Affordable Care Act for future rebalancing efforts.
The Hilltop Institute and the Department of Health Management and Policy at Saint Louis University are co-sponsoring a Community Benefit Preconference to the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting in Seattle, Washington, on June 11, 2011. The purpose of this preconference, entitled Moving Forward with Evidence-Based Policy and Practice, is to facilitate collaboration between health care delivery systems—particularly hospital community benefit programs—and the communities they serve. Hilltop Hospital Community Benefit Program Director Donna Folkemer, MA, will speak about policy challenges and opportunities for states as §9007 of the Affordable Care Act is implemented. This is the subject of the program’s second issue brief, Hospital Community Benefits after the ACA: Building on State Experience. The event is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation MATCH Program.
Hilltop Director of Long-Term Services and Supports Cynthia H. Woodcock, MBA, and Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Deputy Secretary of Health Care Financing and former Hilltop Executive Director Charles J. Milligan, Jr., JD, MPH, will present the keynote address at this year’s Long-Term Care Colloquium at the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting on June 14, 2011, in Seattle, Washington. In this colloquium, entitled Building Bridges: Making a Difference in Long-Term Care, Woodcock and Milligan will present highlights from their commissioned paper, focusing on the success, to date, of rebalancing long-term care toward community settings and the implications of provisions in the Affordable Care Act for future rebalancing efforts.
The Hilltop Institute’s Hospital Community Benefit Program has just released its first newsletter, Community Benefit Briefing. The newsletter is meant to assist state and local policymakers to understand and monitor hospital community benefit activities. This issue highlights the Catholic Health Association’s discussion draft of a new guide, Oregon House Bill 2392, a preconference to the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting, and the program’s second and third issue briefs. To view the newsletter, click here. To subscribe, click here.
The Hilltop Institute’s Hospital Community Benefit Program has just released its second issue brief, entitled Hospital Community Benefits after the ACA: Building on State Experience. The brief takes a closer look at three aspects of community benefits affected by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) §9007, “Additional Requirements for Nonprofit Hospitals”: community health needs assessment; hospital financial assistance and billing and collection policies; and community benefit reporting and oversight strategies. The brief considers each of these requirements against a backdrop of federal and state experience and practice. The view the bulletin, click here. To view the brief, click here. To learn more about Hilltop’s Hospital Community Benefit Program, click here.
Hilltop Senior Research Analyst Michael T. Abrams, MPH, presented a paper at the Tenth Workshop on Costs and Assessment in Psychiatry on March 27, 2011, in Venice, Italy. The international workshop was organized in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), and national governmental institutions, such as the US NIMH, the UK Department of Health, and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Abrams’ presentation, entitled Correlates to Antipsychotic Medication Switching among U.S. Medicaid Clients with Schizophrenia, described a method of summarizing administrative data to quantify switching events among persons with schizophrenia who use common medications for treating that illness. The work also explored demographic and drug type correlations to such medication switching. David S. Salkever, PhD, Professor of Public Policy at UMBC, was a co-author on this work.
Salkever and Abrams presented a second paper at this same conference entitled Antipsychotic Switching and Heterogeneity in Treatment Costs for Persons with Schizophrenia in the Maryland Medicaid Program. This study examined cost impacts of different antipsychotic drugs used to treat persons with schizophrenia, and furthermore considered the impact of switching medication vs. stable therapy. The work included comparisons of standard ordinary least squared (OLS) regressions with instrumental variable approaches to consider the differential impacts of individual antipsychotics, as well as conventionals vs. atypicals. For more information, contact Michael Abrams.
The Hilltop Institute co-sponsored an AARP Solutions Forum entitled Launching Insurance Exchanges: What Are States Doing? on April 4, 2011, in Washington, DC. The forum explored the variety of ways states are moving ahead with plans for the launch of state insurance exchanges as part of the Affordable Care Act. Hilltop’s former Executive Director Chuck Milligan gave an overview of key issues: structuring governance and oversight; avoiding adverse risk selection; determining plan selection/participation; integration with public programs and private market; helping individuals and employers navigate; protecting the public (transparency and rewarding and improving quality of care); and funding of exchanges. To view a webcast of the forum, click here.
Hilltop Deputy Director Michael Nolin participated in a panel discussion entitled Health Reform 2011: Where are we now? at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Public Administrators on March 14, 2011, in Baltimore, Maryland. In his presentation, which focused on Maryland’s reform efforts, Nolin gave an overview of Maryland’s reform preparation process and described the Maryland Health Care Reform Coordinating Council (HCRCC) and the work Hilltop performed as staff for the HCRCC; described Hilltop’s financial modeling tool that determined that Maryland could save $829 million in implementing federal health reform; and discussed the major health reform issues that remain unresolved. To view the presentation, click here. To learn more about Hilltop’s financial modeling tool, contact Michael Nolin.
Hilltop Executive Director Charles Milligan traveled to Columbus, Ohio, on February 23, 2011, to give two presentations to decision makers. Milligan discussed opportunities to better serve persons dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid (dual eligibles) in his presentation to the Ohio Association of Health Plans and the Ohio Association of Area Agencies on Aging (O4A) entitled Innovations in Integrated Care. He discussed the importance of integrating long-term services and supports for this population; the results of Hilltop’s research on Medicare/Medicaid cross-payer effects for dual eligibles that found that Medicare and Medicaid financing do not align to promote home and community-based services (HCBS) and that the HCBS waiver is only cost-effective (at the individual level) for Medicaid when it truly avoids a nursing home placement; and new opportunities for states under the Affordable Care Act to better serve dual eligibles. To view the presentation, click here. To view a press release on the presentation, clickhere . To access Hilltop’s reports on Medicare/Medicaid cross-payer effects, click here. To view a video clip of Milligan discussing this issue, click here.
Also on February 23, Milligan gave a presentation entitled Medicaid Basics in an Era of Health Reform to two groups—Ohio state legislators and their staff, and other stakeholders—sponsored by the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. In this legislative briefing, Milligan gave an overview of Medicaid and discussed budget tools used by states to manage Medicaid programs, which are important for lawmakers to understand when developing and assessing budget and program proposals. Milligan also addressed the implications of federal health reform for state Medicaid programs and the changing state/federal relationship. To view the presentation, click here.
The Hilltop Institute’s Health Services Policy and Research Director Cynthia Boddie-Willis, MD, MPH, was a discussant at an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report dissemination workshop, entitled For the Public’s Health: The Role of Measurement in Action and Accountability, on February 17, 2011, in Washington, DC. Boddie-Willis participated in a discussion on the interface between clinical care and public health, which addressed recommendations #4 and #5 of the first report of the IOM Committee on Public Health Strategies to Improve Health.