- Center on Health Equity & Access
- Clinical
- Health Care Cost
- Health Care Delivery
- Insurance
- Policy
- Technology
- Value-Based Care
What We're Reading: Nursing Home Staff Shortages, Closures; State Guidance for New Mental Health Hotline; Doula Services for Medicaid
Staff shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic could lead to closures for nursing homes; some states lack funding and guidance for the mental health hotline opening next month; 17 states are considering implementing policies to provide Medicaid reimbursement for services of doulas.
Nursing Homes Face Closures
Nearly 60% of nursing homes in the United States are operating at a financial loss, according to a survey by the American Health Care Association. The survey found that 60% of nursing homes have had worse staffing situations since the start of 2022. Nursing home representatives surveyed said that they had needed to hire temporary staff and limit new admissions to their facility in order to compensate for lack of staff, and 99% of nursing homes had asked employees to work overtime. Nearly three-quarters of nursing homes in the survey reported that they were concerned about having to close if these staffing shortages continued.
Mental Health Hotline Without Funding in Numerous States
A mental health hotline, reachable at the number 988 as soon as July 16, lacks set funding or legislative support on the state level. The legislation to enact the hotline, which passed in 2020, left financial support for staffing, phone lines, computer systems, and other infrastructure in the hands of the states. However, only 4 states (Colorado, Nevada, Virginia, and Washington) have passed comprehensive plans for the implementation of the hotline. A RAND Corporation report claimed that more than half of public health officials felt unprepared for the rollout of the new hotline in a month.
States to Extend Medicaid Money for Doulas
Several states have considered extending coverage of Medicaid to doula services, which may help combat the poor statistics on maternal mortality in the United States, according to Pew. A doula is a trained support person who can provide guidance—but not medical assistance—to a pregnant woman before, during, and after labor. There are 6 states that currently provide these services to women on Medicaid (Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon and Virginia) while 5 other states (California, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, and Rhode Island) and the District of Columbia also plan to apply to CMS for this reimbursement.
Urticaria Diagnosis Challenged by Overlapping Pruritic Skin Conditions
April 23rd 2025Urticaria is complicated to diagnose by its symptomatic overlap with other skin conditions and the frequent misclassification in literature of distinct pathologies like vasculitic urticaria and bullous pemphigus.
Read More
New Research Challenges Assumptions About Hospital-Physician Integration, Medicare Patient Mix
April 22nd 2025On this episode of Managed Care Cast, Brady Post, PhD, lead author of a study published in the April 2025 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care®, challenges the claim that hospital-employed physicians serve a more complex patient mix.
Listen
Personalized Care Key as Tirzepatide Use Expands Rapidly
April 15th 2025Using commercial insurance claims data and the US launch of tirzepatide as their dividing point, John Ostrominski, MD, Harvard Medical School, and his team studied trends in the use of both glucose-lowering and weight-lowering medications, comparing outcomes between adults with and without type 2 diabetes.
Listen
ACOs’ Focus on Rooting Out Fraud Aligns With CMS Vision Under Oz
April 23rd 2025Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are increasingly playing the role of data sleuths as they identify and report trends of anomalous billing in hopes of salvaging their shared savings. This mission dovetails with that of CMS, which under the new administration plans to prioritize rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse.
Read More
