Well Child Visit Attendance for Group Prenatal Care Participants.

OBJECTIVES: Participation in group prenatal care (GPNC) has been associated with increased attendance at prenatal, family planning and postpartum visits. We explored whether GPNC participation is associated with pediatric care engagement by measuring well-child visit (WCV) attendance among infants whose births were covered by Medicaid. METHODS: We used Medicaid claims and vital statistics from the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and GPNC site participation records (2013-2018). We compared WCV attendance of CenteringPregnancy GPNC patients to a propensity-score matched cohort of individual prenatal care patients (IPNC) across 21 prenatal care practices using linear probability models. The primary outcome measure was attending 6 or more WCVs in the first 15 months, a Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) performance measure. RESULTS: No differences in WCV were observed when comparing any exposure to GPNC (one or more sessions) to IPNC. We identified 3191 patients who participated in GPNC and matched these with 5184 in IPNC. Participation in 5 or more GPNC sessions compared to 5 or more prenatal visits was associated with higher rates of WCV compliance over the first 15 months (4.7 percentage point difference [95% CI 3.1-6.3%, P < .001]), with stronger associations between GPNC and WCV attendance for low birthweight infants, for Black infants, and for infants of mothers with no previous live births. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests GPNC may modestly influence WCV attendance. The potential mechanisms and dose response require further investigation. Gaps in WCV attendance compared to benchmarks persist regardless of PNC model.

Group Prenatal Care and Emergency Room Utilization.

Pregnancy-related complaints are a significant driver of emergency room (ER) utilization among women. Because of additional time for patient education and provider relationships, group prenatal care may reduce ER visits among pregnant women by helping them identify appropriate care settings, improving understanding of common pregnancy discomforts, and reducing risky health behaviors. We conducted a retrospective cohort study, utilizing Medicaid claims and birth certificate data from a statewide expansion of group care, to compare ER utilization between pregnant women participating in group prenatal care and individual prenatal care. Using propensity score matching methods, we found that group care was associated with a significant reduction in the likelihood of having any ER utilization (-5.9% among women receiving any group care and -6.0% among women attending at least five group care sessions). These findings suggest that group care may reduce ER utilization among pregnant women and encourage appropriate health care utilization during pregnancy.

The Affordable Care Act's Coverage Impacts in the Trump Era.

The 2016 US presidential election created uncertainty about the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and led to postponed implementation of certain provisions, reduced funding for outreach, and the removal of the individual mandate tax penalty. In this article, we estimate how the causal impact of the ACA on insurance coverage changed during 2017 through 2019, the first 3 years of the Trump administration, compared to 2016. Data come from the 2011-2019 waves of the American Community Survey (ACS), with the sample restricted to non-elderly adults. Our model leverages variation in treatment intensity from state Medicaid expansion decisions and pre-ACA uninsured rates. We find that the coverage gains from the components of the law that took effect nationally-such as the individual mandate and regulations and subsidies in the private non-group market-fell from 5 percentage points in 2016 to 3.6 percentage points in 2019. In contrast, the coverage gains from the Medicaid expansion increased in 2017 (7.0 percentage points) before returning to the 2016 level of coverage gains in 2019 (5.9 percentage points). The net effect of the ACA in expansion states is a combination of these trends, with coverage gains falling from 10.8 percentage points in 2016 to 9.6 percentage points in 2019.

The impact of the Affordable Care Act on health care access and self-assessed health in the Trump Era (2017-2018).

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the impact of the major components of the ACA (Medicaid expansion, subsidized Marketplace plans, and insurance market reforms) on health care access and self-assessed health during the first 2 years of the Trump administration (2017 and 2018). DATA SOURCE: The 2011-2018 waves of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), with the sample restricted to nonelderly adults. The BRFSS is a commonly used data source in the ACA literature due to its large number of questions related to access and self-assessed health. In addition, it is large enough to precisely estimate the effects of state policy interventions, with over 300 000 observations per year. DESIGN: We estimate difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) models to separately identify the effects of the private and Medicaid expansion portions of the ACA using an identification strategy initially developed in Courtemanche et al (2017). The differences come from: (a) time, (b) state Medicaid expansion status, and (c) local area pre-2014 uninsured rates. We examine ten outcome variables, including four measures of access and six measures of self-assessed health. We also examine differences by income and race/ethnicity. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Despite changes in ACA administration and the political debate surrounding the ACA during 2017 and 2018, including these fourth and fifth years of postreform data suggests continued gains in coverage. In addition, the improvements in reported excellent health that emerged with a lag after ACA implementation continued during 2017 and 2018. CONCLUSIONS: While gains in access and self-assessed health continued in the first 2 years of the Trump administration, the ongoing debate at both the federal and state level surrounding the future of the ACA suggests the need to continue monitoring how the law impacts these and many other important outcomes over time.

The three-year impact of the Affordable Care Act on disparities in insurance coverage.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the impact of the major components of the ACA (Medicaid expansion, subsidized Marketplace plans, and insurance market reforms) on disparities in insurance coverage after three years. DATA SOURCE: The 2011-2016 waves of the American Community Survey (ACS), with the sample restricted to nonelderly adults. DESIGN: We estimate a difference-in-difference-in-differences model to separately identify the effects of the nationwide and Medicaid expansion portions of the ACA using the methodology developed in the recent ACA literature. The differences come from time, state Medicaid expansion status, and local area pre-ACA uninsured rates. In order to focus on access disparities, we stratify our sample separately by income, race/ethnicity, marital status, age, gender, and geography. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: After three years, the fully implemented ACA eliminated 43% of the coverage gap across income groups, with the Medicaid expansion accounting for this entire reduction. The ACA also reduced coverage disparities across racial groups by 23%, across marital status by 46%, and across age-groups by 36%, with these changes being partly attributable to both the Medicaid expansion and nationwide components of the law. CONCLUSIONS: The fully implemented ACA has been successful in reducing coverage disparities across multiple groups.

Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Health Care Access and Self-Assessed Health After 3 Years.

Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, we examine the causal impact of the Affordable Care Act on health-related outcomes after 3 years. We estimate difference-in-difference-in-differences models that exploit variation in treatment intensity from 2 sources: (1) local area prereform uninsured rates from 2013 and (2) state participation in the Medicaid expansion. Including the third postreform year leads to 2 important insights. First, gains in health insurance coverage and access to care from the policy continued to increase in the third year. Second, an improvement in the probability of reporting excellent health emerged in the third year, with the effect being largely driven by the non-Medicaid expansions components of the policy.

Medicaid program choice, inertia and adverse selection.

In 2012, Kentucky implemented Medicaid managed care statewide, auto-assigned enrollees to three plans, and allowed switching. Using administrative data, we find that the state's auto-assignment algorithm most heavily weighted cost-minimization and plan balancing, and placed little weight on the quality of the enrollee-plan match. Immobility - apparently driven by health plan inertia - contributed to the success of the cost-minimization strategy, as more than half of enrollees auto-assigned to even the lowest quality plans did not opt-out. High-cost enrollees were more likely to opt-out of their auto-assigned plan, creating adverse selection. The plan with arguably the highest quality incurred the largest initial profit margin reduction due to adverse selection prior to risk adjustment, as it attracted a disproportionate share of high-cost enrollees. The presence of such selection, caused by differential degrees of mobility, raises concerns about the long run viability of the Medicaid managed care market without such risk adjustment.

Medicaid Managed Care and the Health Care Utilization of Foster Children.

A recent trend in state Medicaid programs is the transition of vulnerable populations into Medicaid managed care (MMC) who were initially carved out of such coverage, such as foster children or those with disabilities. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the impact of the transition of foster children from fee-for-service Medicaid coverage to MMC coverage on outpatient health care utilization. There is very little empirical evidence on the impact of managed care on the health care utilization of foster children because of the recent timing of these transitions as well as challenges associated with finding data sets large enough to contain a sufficient number of foster children for such analysis. Using administrative Medicaid data from Kentucky, we use retrospective difference-in-differences analysis to compare the outpatient utilization of foster children transitioned to MMC in one region of the state with foster children in the rest of the state who remained in fee-for-service coverage. We find that the transition to MMC led to a 4 percentage point reduction in the probability of having any monthly outpatient utilization. We also estimate that MMC leads to a reduction in outpatient spending.

Do High Fidelity Wraparound Services for Youth with Serious Emotional Disturbances Save Money in the Long-Term?

BACKGROUND: Treating youth with serious emotional disturbances (SED) is expensive often requiring institutional care. A significant amount of recent federal and state funding has been dedicated to expanding home and community-based services for these youth as an alternative to institutional care. High Fidelity Wraparound (Wrap) is an evolving, evidence-informed practice to help sustain community-based placements for youth with an SED through the use of intensive, customized care coordination among parents, multiple child-serving agencies, and providers. While there is growing evidence on the benefits of Wrap, few studies have examined health care spending associated with Wrap participation and none have examined spending patterns after the completion of Wrap. Merging health care spending data from multiple agencies and programs allows for a more complete picture of the health care costs of treating these youth in a system-of-care framework. AIMS OF STUDY: (i) To compare overall health care spending for youth who transitioned from institutional care into Wrap (the treatment group) versus youth not receiving Wrap (the control group) and (ii) to compare changes in health care spending, overall and by category, for both groups before (the pre-period) and after (the post-period) Wrap participation. METHODS: The treatment group (N=161) is matched to the control group (N=324) temporally based on the month the youth entered institutional care. Both total health care spending and spending by category are compared for each group pre- and post-Wrap participation. The post-period includes the time in which the youth was receiving Wrap services and one year afterwards to capture long-term cost impacts. RESULTS: In the year before Wrap participation, the treatment group averaged USD 8,433 in monthly health care spending versus USD 4,599 for the control group. Wrap participation led to an additional reduction of USD 1,130 in monthly health care spending as compared to the control group in the post-period. For youth participating in Wrap, these spending reductions were the result of decreases in mental health inpatient spending and general outpatient spending. DISCUSSION: Youth participating in Wrap had much higher average monthly costs than youth in the control group for the year prior to entering Wrap, suggesting that the intervention targeted youth with the highest mental health utilization and likely more complex needs. While both groups experienced reductions in spending, the treatment group experienced larger absolute reductions, but smaller relative reductions associated with participation. These differences were driven mainly by reductions in mental health inpatient spending. Larger reductions in general outpatient spending for the treatment group suggest spillover benefits in terms of physical health care spending. Further analysis is needed to assess how these spending changes impacted health outcomes. IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH POLICIES: Wrap or similar programs may lead to reductions in health care spending. This is the first study to find evidence of longer-term spending reductions for up to a year after Wrap participation. IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH: Randomized trials or some other source of plausibly exogenous variation in Wrap participation is needed to further assess the causal impact of Wrap on health care spending, outcomes, or broader system-of-care spending.

Early Impacts of the Affordable Care Act on Health Insurance Coverage in Medicaid Expansion and Non-Expansion States.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) aimed to achieve nearly universal health insurance coverage in the United States through a combination of insurance market reforms, mandates, subsidies, health insurance exchanges, and Medicaid expansions, most of which took effect in 2014. This paper estimates the causal effects of the ACA on health insurance coverage in 2014 using data from the American Community Survey. We utilize difference-in-difference-in-differences models that exploit cross-sectional variation in the intensity of treatment arising from state participation in the Medicaid expansion and local area pre-ACA uninsured rates. This strategy allows us to identify the effects of the ACA in both Medicaid expansion and non-expansion states. Our preferred specification suggests that, at the average pre-treatment uninsured rate, the full ACA increased the proportion of residents with insurance by 5.9 percentage points compared to 2.8 percentage points in states that did not expand Medicaid. Private insurance expansions from the ACA were due to increases in both employer-provided and non-group coverage. The coverage gains from the full ACA were largest for those without a college degree, non-whites, young adults, unmarried individuals, and those without children in the home. We find no evidence that the Medicaid expansion crowded out private coverage.

Who Gained Insurance Coverage in 2014, the First Year of Full ACA Implementation?

The most significant pieces of the Affordable Care Act (exchanges, subsidies, Medicaid expansion, and individual mandate), implemented in 2014, were associated with sizable gains in coverage nationally that were divided equally between gains in Medicaid and private coverage. These national trends mask heterogeneity in gains by state Medicaid expansion status, age, income level, and source of coverage. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Does Medicaid Managed Care Help Equalize Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Utilization?

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the impact of different forms of Medicaid managed care (MMC) delivery on racial and ethnic disparities in utilization. DATA SOURCE: Longitudinal, administrative data on 101,649 children in Kentucky continuously enrolled in Medicaid between January 1997 and June 1999. Outcomes considered are monthly professional, outpatient, and inpatient utilization. STUDY DESIGN: We apply an intent-to-treat, instrumental variables analysis using the staggered geographic implementation of MMC to create treatment and control groups of children. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The implementation of MMC reduced monthly professional visits by a smaller degree for non-whites than whites (3.8 percentage points vs. 6.2 percentage points), thereby helping to equalize the initial racial/ethnic disparity in utilization. The Passport MMC program in the Louisville-centered region statistically significantly reduced disparities for professional visits (closing the gap by 8.0 percentage points), while the Kentucky Health Select MMC program in the Lexington-centered region did not. No substantive impact on disparities was found for either outpatient or inpatient utilization in either program. CONCLUSIONS: We find evidence that MMC has the possibility to reduce racial/ethnic disparities in professional utilization. More work is needed to determine which managed care program characteristics drive this result.

Estimating premium sensitivity for children's public health insurance coverage: selection but no death spiral.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the effect of premium increases on the probability that near-poor and moderate-income children disenroll from public coverage. DATA SOURCES: Enrollment, eligibility, and claims data for Georgia's PeachCare for Kids(™) (CHIP) program for multiple years. STUDY DESIGN: We exploited policy-induced variation in premiums generated by cross-sectional differences and changes over time in enrollee age, family size, and income to estimate the duration of enrollment as a function of the effective (per child) premium. We classify children as being of low, medium, or high illness severity. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: A dollar increase in the per-child premium is associated with a slight increase in a typical child's monthly probability of exiting coverage from 7.70 to 7.83 percent. Children with low illness severity have a significantly higher monthly baseline probability of exiting than children with medium or high illness severity, but the enrollment response to premium increases is similar across all three groups. CONCLUSIONS: Success in achieving coverage gains through public programs is tempered by persistent problems in maintaining enrollment, which is modestly affected by premium increases. Retention is subject to adverse selection problems, but premium increases do not appear to significantly magnify the selection problem in this case.

Does More Public Health Spending Buy Better Health?

BACKGROUND: In this article, we attempt to address a persistent question in the health policy literature: Does more public health spending buy better health? This is a difficult question to answer due to unobserved differences in public health across regions as well as the potential for an endogenous relationship between public health spending and public health outcomes. METHODS: We take advantage of the unique way in which public health is funded in Georgia to avoid this endogeneity problem, using a twelve year panel dataset of Georgia county public health expenditures and outcomes in order to address the "unobservables" problem. RESULTS: We find that increases in public health spending lead to increases in mortality by several different causes, including early deaths and heart disease deaths. We also find that increases in such spending leads to increases in morbidity from heart disease. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that more public health funding may not always lead to improvements in health outcomes at the county level.

Examining the potential of information technology to improve public insurance application processes: enrollee assessments from a concurrent mixed method analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the perceived readiness of Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollees to use information technologies (IT) in order to facilitate improvements in the application processes for these public insurance programs. METHODS: We conducted a concurrent mixed method study of Medicaid and CHIP enrollees in a southern state. We conducted focus groups to identify enrollee concerns regarding the current application process and their IT proficiency. Additionally, we surveyed beneficiaries via telephone about their access to and use of the Internet, and willingness to adopt IT-enabled processes. 2013 households completed the survey. We used χ(2) analysis for comparisons across different groups of respondents. RESULTS: A majority of enrollees will embrace IT-enabled enrollment, but a small yet significant group continues to lack access to facilitating technologies. Moreover, a segment of beneficiaries in the two programs continues to place a high value on personal interactions with program caseworkers. DISCUSSION: IT holds the promise of improving efficiency and reducing barriers for enrollees, but state and federal agencies managing public insurance programs need to ensure access to traditional processes and make caseworkers available to those who require and value such assistance, even after implementing IT-enabled processes. CONCLUSIONS: The use of IT-enabled processes is essential for effectively managing eligibility and enrollment determinations for public programs and private plans offered through state or federally operated exchanges. However, state and federal officials should be cognizant of the technological readiness of recipients and provide offline help to ensure broad participation in the insurance market.

A tale of two cities? The heterogeneous impact of Medicaid managed care.

Evaluating Accountable Care Organizations is difficult because there is a great deal of heterogeneity in terms of their reimbursement incentives and other programmatic features. We examine how variation in reimbursement incentives and administration among two Medicaid managed care plans impacts utilization and spending. We use a quasi-experimental approach exploiting the timing and county-specific implementation of Medicaid managed care mandates in two contiguous regions of Kentucky. We find large differences in the relative success of each plan in reducing utilization and spending that are likely driven by important differences in plan design. The plan that capitated primary care physicians and contracted out many administrative responsibilities to an experienced managed care organization achieved significant reductions in outpatient and professional utilization. The plan that opted for a fee-for-service reimbursement scheme with a group withhold and handled administration internally saw a much more modest reduction in outpatient utilization and an increase in professional utilization.

The effects of Medicaid policy changes on adults' service use patterns in Kentucky and Idaho.

BACKGROUND: In 2006, Idaho and Kentucky became two of the first states to implement changes to their Medicaid programs under authority granted by the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act (DRA). The DRA granted new flexibility in the design of state Medicaid programs, including a state plan amendment (SPA) option for changes that previously would have required a waiver. This paper uses state Medicaid administrative data to analyze the impact of Medicaid policy changes implemented in these states through a series of SPAs in 2006 and 2007. METHODS: Changes in utilization are examined for multiple services, including physician, dental, and ER visits, inpatient stays, and prescriptions, among non-elderly adult Medicaid recipients following changes in cost sharing, reimbursement, service delivery, and covered services. Where possible, enrollees not affected by the changes served as a comparison group. RESULTS: While relatively few adults in Idaho received a wellness exam after such coverage was added, the adoption of managed care for dental services was associated with increased receipt of dental care, including preventive care. The new limits on brand name prescriptions in Kentucky were associated with a reduction in the proportion of enrollees with two or more monthly name brand prescriptions while the small copayments introduced did not appear to have a dramatic impact. CONCLUSIONS: We find that changes in financial incentives on both the supply-side (such as reimbursement increases) and the demand-side (i.e., benefit changes) alone may not be enough to generate the desired levels of preventive care, especially among those with chronic health conditions.

The effects of Medicaid and CHIP policy changes on receipt of preventive care among children.

OBJECTIVE: To examine changes in children's receipt of well-child and preventive dental care in Medicaid/Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in two states that adopted policies aimed at promoting greater preventive care receipt. DATA SOURCES: The 2004-2008 Medicaid/CHIP claims and enrollment data from Idaho and Kentucky. STUDY DESIGN: Logistic and hazard pre-post regression models, controlling for age, gender, race/ethnicity, and eligibility category. DATA EXTRACTION METHODS: Claims and enrollment data were de-identified and merged. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Increased reimbursement had a small, positive association with well-child care in Idaho, but no consistent effects were found in Kentucky. A premium forgiveness program in Idaho was associated with a substantial increase (between 20 and 113 percent) in receipt of any well-child care and quicker receipt of well-child care following enrollment. In Kentucky, children saw modest increases in receipt of preventive dental care and received such care more quickly following increased dental reimbursement, while the move to managed care in Idaho was associated with a small increase in receipt of preventive dental care. CONCLUSIONS: Policy changes such as reimbursement increases, incentives, and delivery system changes can lead to increases in preventive care use among children in Medicaid and CHIP, but reported preventive care receipt still falls short of recommended levels.

CHIP premiums, health status, and the insurance coverage of children.

This study uses the introduction of premiums into Kentucky's Children's Health Insurance Program (KCHIP) to examine whether the enrollment impact of new premiums varies by child health type. We also examine the extent to which children find alternative coverage after premium nonpayment. Public insurance claims data suggest that those with chronic health conditions are less likely to leave public coverage. We find little evidence of a differential impact of premiums on enrollment among the chronically ill. Our survey of nonpayers shows that 56% of responding families found alternative private or public health coverage for their children after losing CHIP.

SCHIP premiums, enrollment, and expenditures: a two state, competing risk analysis.

Faced with state budget troubles, policymakers may introduce or increase State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) premiums for children in the highest program income eligibility categories. In this paper we compare the responses of SCHIP recipients in a state (Kentucky) that introduced SCHIP premiums for the first time at the end of 2003 with the responses of recipients in a state (Georgia) that increased existing SCHIP premiums in mid-2004. We start with a theoretical examination of how these different policies create different changes to family budget constraints and produce somewhat different financial incentives for recipients. Next we empirically model the impact of these policies using a competing risk approach to differentiate exits due to transfers to other eligibility categories of public coverage from exiting the public health insurance system. In both states we find a short-run increase in the likelihood that children transfer to lower- income eligibility/lower-premium categories of SCHIP. We also find a short-run increase in the rate at which children transfer from SCHIP to Medicaid in Kentucky, which is consistent with our theoretical model. These findings have important financial implications for state budgets, as the matching rates and premium levels are different for different eligibility categories of public coverage.