White Papers

02.28.13

Medicaid Managed Care for Children in Foster Care

In recent years New York State has gradually moved high-need populations out of fee-for-service arrangements and into managed care to improve quality and lower costs. The transition of children in foster care to Medicaid managed care is scheduled to take place in April 2013 for the nearly 6,000 ...


02.01.13

Estimated Financial Effects of Expanding Oregon's Medicaid Program under the Affordable Care Act (20

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) calls for states to expand Medicaid to low income adults and provides federal funds to cover 100 percent of the costs of these "newly eligibles" from 2014 through 2016. The federal matching rate will then decrease over the next four ...


01.01.13

Privacy, Please: Health Consent Laws for Minors in the Information Age

In many states, minors can get abortions, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, or mental health services without their parents' knowledge or consent. In the era of electronic health information exchange (HIE), however, maintaining this confidentiality is a vexing challenge. Information ...


01.01.13

Premium Collection in State Based Exchanges

Health Insurance Exchanges organized pursuant to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have certain requirements and several options with respect to providing premium collection services for small businesses and individual consumers purchasing qualified health plans (QHPs) in 2014. While collection ...


12.01.12

Are We Wired Yet? Measuring the Progress of HITECH in California

Three years after the passage of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, marked progress among California's providers has been made, although there is room for progress toward widespread use of electronic health information to improve the quality and ...


11.01.12

High-Performance Health Care for Vulnerable Populations

Federal and state health reform efforts present compelling opportunities to advance new payment and delivery system models to improve the quality of healthcare services and rein in costs. An emerging challenge for policymakers is to create alignment among these initiatives so that proliferation of ...


05.31.12

Buried Treasure: Freeing California Data to Improve Healthcare

Recognizing the significant role that publicly-accessible and usable data can play in improving the quality and efficiency of the healthcare system, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and certain states have launched initiatives to increase the amount of new healthcare data ...


04.17.12

Achieving Continuity of Insurance Coverage for Lower-Income New Yorkers in 2014

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides new or expanded affordable coverage options to New Yorkers with incomes below 400% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). These coverage options, “Insurance Affordability Programs” (IAPs), include Medicaid, the Children’s ...


03.08.12

Toward a High Performance Health Care System for Vulnerable Populations

Safety-net hospitals are central to healthcare delivery systems and as such play a critical role in achieving high-performance healthcare for vulnerable populations. These hospitals serve disproportionately large numbers of low-income patients, both insured and uninsured, and rely ...


03.06.12

The Role of the Basic Health Program in the Coverage Continuum: Opportunities, Risks and Considerati

The Basic Health Program (BHP) is an optional coverage program under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) that allows states to use federal tax subsidy dollars to offer subsidized coverage for individuals with incomes between 139-200% of the federal poverty level (FPL) who would ...