A Health Podyssey

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Amy Stiffarm of Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies: The Montana Coalition on her recent paper that explores strategies to support perinatal mental health by collaborating with tribal communities in Montana.Order the "Perinatal Mental Health & Well-Being" issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Jessica Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco on her recent paper that explores the perspectives of interprofessional clinicians and what the best approach is to integrating mental health into perinatal care.Order the "Perinatal Mental Health & Well-Being" issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Tova Walsh of the University of Wisconsin-Madison on her recent paper that explores perinatal mental health and the inclusion of fathers at the local, state, and national levels. Throughout their conversation, Walsh identifies recommendations that could lead to more inclusive approaches that aim to improve parental mental health as well as health outcomes for fathers, mothers, and babies. Order the "Perinatal Mental Health & Well-Being" issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Emily Dossett of the University of Southern California and Karen Tabb Dina of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign School of Social Work about their roles as theme issue advisers for the April 2024 Health Affairs issue focused on perinatal mental health and well-being. The authors also provided an overview paper that explores the theme and identifies specific policies to meet perinatal mental health challenges and promote thriving for birthing people and their families. Order the "Perinatal Mental Health and Well-Being" Issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Amanda Chen of Harvard University on her recent paper that identifies major gaps and discrepancies in new CMS nursing home ownership data. From the insights provided by Chen and coauthors, they highlight that transparent ownership data is fundamental to understanding the adequacy of public payments to provide patient care, enable policy makers to make timely decisions, and evaluate nursing home quality.Order the March 2024 issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Courtney Baird of Brown University on her recent paper that explores how county-level mandates were generally effective at slowing COVID-19 transmission. Through their research, Baird and coauthors discovered strong evidence for the overall protective effect of mask mandates and, to a lesser degree, anti-congregation policies. Order the March 2024 issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Sarah Gordon of the Department of Health and Human Services and Boston University on her recent paper that explores lessons from the continuous enrollment provision of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020. Those provisions led to an increase in the rates of continuous coverage for one year postpartum, and they eliminated the large rates of disenrollment that historically have occurred in the third postpartum month.Order the March 2024 issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews John Bowblis of Miami University on his recent paper that explores trends in the use of staffing agencies among nursing homes. Through this study, Bowblis and coauthors observed an increased reliance on these agencies for direct care nursing due to chronic staff shortages. Order the March 2024 issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Kierra Barnett of Nationwide Children's Hospital on her recent paper that details the history of discriminatory policies in the Ohio Neighborhood of Linden and what impacts they've had on housing as well as maternal and infant health. Order the "Housing and Health" issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Sandra Newman of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health on her recent paper that explores the measurable health and related benefits of housing vouchers to families. The benefits observed included parental stress reduction, improved cost burdens, neighborhood safety as well as many other impacts.Order the "Housing and Health" issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Ingrid Gould Ellen of the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service on how neighborhood environments can affect health and health equity. The discussion also considers how interventions at the neighborhood level could advance health equity.Order the "Housing and Health" issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Michael Mayer of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program on his recent paper that explores the impacts of encampment clearings on the homeless population in Boston and how transitional harm reduction housing provided a unique opportunity for former encampment residents.Order the "Housing and Health" issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Ashley M. Fox of the University at Albany, SUNY on her recent paper exploring substantial disparities in COVID-19 vaccine uptake and identifying unmet immunization demand in low- and middle-income countries.Order the "Global Lessons From COVID-19" issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Tse Yang Lim of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health on his recent paper that explores why similar policies resulted in different COVID-19 outcomes and how responsiveness as well as culture influenced mortality rates.Order the "Global Lessons From COVID-19" issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Cristian Herrera of The World Bank on his recent paper which sought to identify disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to routine health care services and how eight Latin American and Caribbean countries responded.Order the "Global Lessons from COVID-19" issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

This episode was originally published in April 2023.Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Chip Kahn from the Federation of American Hospitals on his recent paper where he and co-authors argue that CMS hospital value-based programs should be refined to reduce health disparities and improve outcomes.Order the August 2023 issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

This episode was originally published on July 19, 2022.It's well known that the United States spends much more than other high-income countries on health care, the most recent estimates from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published in Health Affairs show that nearly a fifth of US GDP is spent on health care services.It's perhaps somewhat less well known that health outcomes lag those of many other countries. Life expectancy and infant mortality rates rank well below not just other high-income countries, but many middle-income countries as well.The combination of these two facts leads many to ask the question, "Are we getting our money's worth for all that we spend on health care?"However, simply establishing that the US spends a lot on health care and has sub-optimal health outcomes doesn't fully answer the question.Marcia Weaver from the University of Washington joins A Health Podyssey to discuss whether we receive value for our high levels of health spending.Weaver and coauthors published a paper in the July 2022 of Health Affairs examining the relationship between health spending and disease burden in the United States. They reached some optimistic conclusions based on the data.Order the July 2022 issue of Health Affairs for research on Type 2 diabetes and more.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. Subscribe: RSS | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

This episode was originally published on January 10, 2023.Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Deepak Palakshappa, associate professor at Wake Forest School of Medicine on his paper in the January 2023 issue examining the relationship between food insecurity and health care expenditures in families.Order the January 2023 issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone.Subscribe: RSS | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

This episode was originally released on January 4, 2022.The Medicare program has placed considerable emphasis on creating accountable care organizations (ACOs), which are groups of health care providers that together take responsibility for providing necessary care and can reap financial rewards if they do so at lower than projected costs.While the American Hospital Association reports that 56 percent of community hospitals participate in an ACO, ACOs have developed more slowly in rural than in urban areas.Observing that not all health care providers can afford the infrastructure cost necessary to make an ACO work, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation developed the ACO Investment Model (AIM) which supports physicians, clinicians, and smaller hospitals in their formation of ACOs.The AIM Program evaluation has some interesting lessons for those seeking to promote accountable care.Matthew Trombley from Abt Associates joins Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil on A Health Podyssey to discuss how to support ACO creation in less populated areas.Trombley and coauthors published a paper in the January 2022 issue of Health Affairs examining outcomes following implementation of the Medicare Shared Savings Program in 41 rural ACO investment model facilities. They found significant savings net of program costs but also rapid exits from the program once providers were exposed to downside financial risks.If you enjoy this interview, order the January 2022 Health Affairs issue.Subscribe: RSS | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.

Health Affairs' Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil interviews Joel Weissman of Brigham and Women's Hospital on his recent paper identifying how hospitals are addressing the effects of structural racism and the ways in which health equity officers have become leaders to enact change.Order the "Tackling Structural Racism in Health" issue of Health Affairs.Currently, more than 70 percent of our content is freely available - and we'd like to keep it that way. With your support, we can continue to keep our digital publication Forefront and podcasts free for everyone. FROM OUR ADVERTISER: Our UnitedHealthcare Community & State newsletter is your go-to source for the latest Medicaid news and UnitedHealthcare programs serving Medicaid beneficiaries. Subscribe now by visiting our website at UHCCS.com/Newsletter. Stay in the know by gaining access to our latest blogs, educational videos and upcoming events.