Reports

Deborah Lowe Vandell Educational Sciences Institute for Research on Poverty University of WisconsinMadison Barbara Wolfe1

By: Allen L. Schirm John L. Czajka May 17, 2000

This technical assistance workshop was the third in a series of technical assistance workshops hosted by the Chapin Hall Center for Children for participating states in the Child Indicators Initiative. The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, sponsors the Advancing States Child Indicator Initiatives Project.

  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Child Care Quality: Does it Matter and Does It Need to be Improved? Executive Summary

The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 included a number of changes to Medicare managed care. The newly created Medicare+Choice program differs from its predecessor with regard to payment policies, enrollment and disenrollment policies, and the types of plans that can contract to provide care to Medicare beneficiaries.

Widespread interest in Medicare post-acute care issues, particularly after the Balanced Budget Act (BBA) passed, prompted DALTCP to sponsor an "early indication" qualitative study of the potential effects of the BBA provisions and other related issues.

By: Joseph Waksberg Daniel Levine David Marker

Summaries of Meetings Held with Senior Corporate Managers on Private Employer Strategies and Issues Affecting Health Care Coverage

By: Joseph Waksberg Daniel Levine David Marker Submitted to:U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesOffice of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation

PrologueWe are facing an asthma epidemic. Through newspaper stories and personal experiences, we hear more about asthma every day. A child at school has an asthma attack in the classroom. The radio reports an air pollution alert, warning anyone with breathing problems to stay indoors. The local school board debates a policy on students carrying inhaler medications.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Changes in children's health insurance coverage occur with far greater frequency than the modest year-to-year changes in the proportion uninsured or the proportion with different types of coverage would suggest.

This report examines the role of "trigger events" — primarily changes in the family economic situation or family composition — in bringing about these changes in health insurance coverage. In short, we ask whether there are other changes in the family that may explain the occurrence of these changes in coverage or their timing.

By: John L. Czajka Cara Olsen Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. Washington, D.C. April 18, 2000 Submitted to:Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation

By Marilyn Ellwood & Carol Irvin Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. 50 Church Street, Fourth Floor Cambridge, MA 02138 April 14, 2000

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Prescription drugs play an ever-increasing role in modern medicine. New medications are improving health outcomes and quality of life, replacing surgery and other invasive treatments, and quickening recovery for patients who receive these treatments. As important as prescription drugs are, not everyone has access to them.

Marc A. Cohen, Ph.D. Vice President, LifePlans, Inc. President, Center for Health and Long-Term Care Research Maurice Weinrobe, Ph.D. Professor of Economics, Clark University Jessica Miller, M.S.

The purpose of this report is to provide basic descriptive statistics on disabled private long-term care insurance policyholders who have accessed long-term care benefits in institutional settings, and to compare such data and findings to non-privately insured institutionalized elders.

Marc A. Cohen, Ph.D. Vice President, LifePlans, Inc. President, Center for Health and Long-Term Care Research Maurice Weinrobe, Ph.D. Professor of Economics, Clark University

Executive Summary Prescription drugs play an ever-increasing role in modern medicine. New medications are improving health outcomes and quality of life, replacing surgery and other invasive treatments, and quickening recovery for patients who receive these treatments. As important as prescription drugs are, not everyone has access to them.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Policy changes may have both positive and negative effects on programs that are not the primary target of the policy. Policymakers hope that the potential negative effects are minimized and do not outweigh the positive effects on the target program as well as on other programs.

Prepared by: Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago Center for Social Services Research, University of California, Berkeley School of Social Work, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill American Institutes for Research, Prime Contractor

Study Methods Coordination and Client Services Advantages of Coordination for the Client Factors that Promote Coordination Challenges to Coordination

Nancy Pindus Robin Koralek Karin Martinson John Trutko

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

    U.S. Department of Health and Human Services   Important Questions for Hospice in the Next Century Executive Summary

The Welfare Indicators Act of 1994 requires the Department of Health and Human Services to prepare annual reports to Congress on indicators and predictors of welfare dependence.

This report contains six main sections. The first focuses on hospice coverage policies and reviews the history of the Medicare hospice benefit, its current structure, and its influence on care of the dying. Also included is a description of hospice care covered by other insurers including state Medicaid programs and private employers.

This study is part of a larger project exploring the use of hospice benefits and services provided by the Medicare program and to those who are privately insured. The MEDSTAT Group's contribution to the larger study is an examination of hospice benefits in commercial plans and the use of hospice benefits by persons commercially insured.

This comparative study first identifies and describes two cohorts of nursing facility decedents, those that did and did not elect Medicare hospice. Then, using data for up to one year prior to death, the study characterizes utilization and quality of care for these two cohorts.

This report presents information on Medicare's hospice benefit — who is using it, how it is being used, what costs are associated with its use, what costs precede hospice enrollment and how these vary by type of enrollee.

Prepared by Staff of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Acknowledgements

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Susan C. Miller, Pedro Gozalo and Vincent Mor Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research, Brown University PDF Version: http://aspe.hhs.gov/daltcp/reports/2000/oututil.pdf (63 PDF pages)

Susan C. Miller, Pedro Gozalo and Vincent Mor Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research, Brown University This report was prepared under contract #100-97-0010 between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of Disability, Aging and Long-Term Care Policy (DALTCP) and the Urban Institute.