Primary Care

The U.S. behavioral health (BH) workforce faces significant shortages and distribution disparities, hindering access to quality care and worsening health outcomes. A comprehensive, centralized database of BH providers is vital for advancing patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR), comparative effectiveness research (CER), and evidence-based policymaking.

This report outlines the major issues faced by the U.S. health care workforce. It addresses medical, dental and behavioral health components of the workforce as well as direct care workers. The report also describes opportunities for progress to address these issues and existing activities supported by the Department to address these issues.

This issue brief uses Medicare fee-for-service data to conduct illustrative analyses of primary care spending using a methodology that has been frequently used by policymakers and academics and can be applied to claims data.

Telehealth utilization has changed over time since the steep increase from the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. This report updates prior findings on national trends of telehealth use through an analysis using the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey data from April 2021 through August 2022.

This ASPE Research Report summarizes findings about factors affecting Emergency Department wait times and Primary Care appointment scheduling intervals, and it describes strategies Indian Health Service (IHS) federal facilities have implemented associated with decreased wait times in Emergency Departments.Available Reports:

This issue brief provides updates on state Medicaid policies regarding delivery of telehealth services by provider types and modalities, as of January 2022. The COVID-19 pandemic substantially accelerated interest in and utilization of telehealth across all payers including Medicaid.

This posting includes a report prepared by the RAND Corporation, “State All Payer Claims Databases Understanding the Current Landscape and Challenges to Use,” which builds on a 2021 report “The History, Promise and Challenges of State All Payer Claims Databases.” The new report provides additional detail on the objectives of and use cases for APCDs, the current APCD landscape, and implementatio

This project report provides potential approaches to expand and strengthen the entry-level health care workforce in the United States, with a primary focus on seven occupations: nurses, medical assistants, dental ass istants and hygienists, health aides, community health workers, peer specialists, and other specialized providers. Resource:

This report describes an extension of the RAND Corporation's evaluation of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's Primary and Behavioral Health Care Integration (PBHCI) grants program.

This study assessed individual and state-level factors which affect decisions by Nurse Practitioners (NPs) about whether to practice in primary care. Of particular interest was the impact of state scope of practice (SOP) regulations on elements of NP practice such as patient load, the flow of patient care, and the management of a patient panel decision.