News & Bulletins Archive

On January 31, 2013, Michael Abrams, MPH, Senior Research Analyst at The Hilltop Institute, presented research to the Performance and Evaluation Committee of Baltimore Substance Abuse System, Inc. (bSAS), demonstrating that quantitative Medicaid expenditure savings in CY 2010 for patients with substance use disorders (SUDs) were correlated with the “coordination of care reputation” of those patients’ providers. Though the work relied on an imprecise definition for “care coordination,” it nevertheless yielded highly significant point estimates for per person Medical saving on the order of $1,000 a year. This translates to calculated savings of just over $7 million in the population studied (a 59% sample of Maryland Medicaid enrollees with SUDs), Furthermore, this work was validated by separate correlations, showing that “coordination of care” was also significantly associated with reduced inpatient service use. Abrams led the research team, which included Seung Kim (Policy Analyst, Hilltop), Jayne Miller (Senior Programmer, Hilltop), Jose Arbelaez (Director of Epidemiology and Evaluation, bSAS), and Yngvild Olsen (private consultant and Medical Director for the Institutes of Behavior Resources, Inc.). This work was funded by bSAS. View the presentation. To learn more about this research, contact Michael Abrams.

Hilltop Director of Medicaid Policy Studies David Idala, MA, and Policy Specialist Yi-An Chen, MA, presented a poster at the 2012 Summit on the Science of Eliminating Health Disparities, on December 18, 2012, in National Harbor, Maryland. The poster, titled The Use of Emergency Department (ED) Services for Non-Emergent Conditions among Adults with Disabilities, displays the preliminary results of a study that explores the impact of race/ethnicity and insurance status on ED use among individuals with disabilities. View the poster.

Hilltop Long-Term Services and Supports Policy and Research Director Donna C. Folkemer, MA, gave a presentation titled Improving Care: State Legislative Role in Improving the Quality of Long-Term Services and Supports at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) Fall Forum Pre-Conference Meeting on December 5, 2012, in Washington, DC. In her presentation, Folkemer discussed eight things legislators should know about quality. The pre-conference meeting was attended by legislators and legislative staff from across the country. View the presentation.

Hilltop Interim Executive Director Mike Nolin was the moderator of a session titled State Experience in Working on the Health Insurance Exchanges at the Health Insurance Exchange Summit held on November 29 and 30, 2012, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The conference was attended by approximately 150 leaders from around the country. On the panel were a health plan representative from Massachusetts, Utah’s coordinator of health reform, the executive director of the Minnesota Exchange, the assistant commissioner for the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance, and director of the Tennessee Insurance Exchange Planning Initiative.

Hilltop made several presentations at the 65th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Gerontological Society of America that took place November 14-18, 2012, in San Diego. On November 14, Hilltop presented a symposium session titled Medicare-Medicaid Enrollees: An Examination of New Maryland Enrollees and Pathways to Coverage. The purpose of the session was to discuss the findings of the research Hilltop conducted to examine the experience of Maryland Medicare-Medicaid enrollees before their eligibility for both programs. The research identified and cataloged significant differences between persons who first enroll in Medicaid and then in Medicare and those who first enroll in Medicare and then in Medicaid. In the session, Hilltop researchers shared the results of their analyses and findings from a background paper about pathways to eligibility for both programs. Hilltop Director of Long-Term Services and Supports Policy and Research Donna Folkemer, MA, moderated the session. Cynthia Woodcock, MBA, formerly of Hilltop and now Practice Area Lead, Long-Term Care, Aging, and Disability at IMPAQ International, discussed the literature review that described the various pathways to eligibility, presented examples of programs aimed at delaying functional decline and/or poverty, and reviewed enrollment barriers faced by individuals who need both Medicare and Medicaid coverage. Hilltop Policy Analyst Aaron Tripp, MSW, discussed the study on demographic and programmatic characteristics, which compared and contrasted enrollees in both programs with particular attention to identifying differences among various groups. Hilltop Director of Special Studies Ian Stockwell, MA, discussed the study on prior Medicare and Medicaid resource use, which examined chronic disease patterns and prior health care expenditures of persons who began to receive coverage in 2008 from both Medicare and Medicaid. Chuck Milligan, JD, MPH, Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Deputy Secretary of Health Care Financing, was the discussant for the session. View the presentation. View the three study reports.

In addition to this session, Hilltop staff made two more presentations at this meeting. Aaron Tripp and Cynthia Woodcock made a presentation titled New Jersey Care Partner Support Pilot Program: Findings, which discussed the findings of a study to evaluate the program. Ian Stockwell gave a presentation titled Medicaid Long-Term Services and Supports in Maryland: Money Follows the Person (MFP) Metrics, which discussed the set of evaluation metrics for Maryland’s MFP program that Hilltop built and used to evaluate the program.

On October 26, 2012, Hilltop held a colloquium, Health Reform: Implementing Insurance Coverage Expansion, for UMBC faculty, staff, and students, where attendees learned about the policy and financial structure of health insurance reform, as well as the status of its implementation nationally and in Maryland. Click here for more information.

Hilltop Senior Policy Analyst Laura Spicer, MA, gave a presentation at the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) 25th Annual State Health Policy Conference held October 15-17, 2012, in Baltimore. In the presentation, Impact of Medicaid Expansion on a State’s Economy: The Hilltop Health Care Reform Simulation Model, Spicer gave an overview of the Hilltop Health Care Reform Simulation Model, a financial modeling tool developed by Hilltop Director of Economic Analysis Hamid Fakraei, PhD, that projects the costs and savings to states as they implement the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Spicer discussed the economic impacts of the ACA and how the model was used in Maryland to isolate the impact of Medicaid Expansion and inform the decision by Maryland policymakers to expand Medicaid in 2015. View the presentation. Learn more about the Hilltop Health Care Simulation Model.

Hilltop has just released a new Issue Brief entitled Lessons from the Implementation of the Maryland Kids First Act, which highlights key findings from Hilltop’s study that evaluated the Kids First outreach initiative. The overarching goal of the study was to evaluate the implementation of Kids First and how well the state achieved its goal of identifying and enrolling uninsured children who are eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in order to glean lessons for not only Maryland, but also other states. This brief describes the factors that facilitated Kids First, as well as the key challenges that Maryland faced as it implemented the initiative. Read the brief. View the Bulletin.

The Hilltop Institute’s Hospital Community Benefit Program has just released two new issue briefs in its Hospital Community Benefits after the ACA series, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Kresge Foundation .The briefs are being published simultaneously as companion briefs. Read Schedule H and Hospital Community Benefit – Opportunities and Challenges for the States. Read Community Building and the Root Causes of Poor Health. View the Bulletin.

Hilltop Policy Analyst Aaron Tripp, MSW, gave a presentation with IMPAQ International Senior Research Associate Cynthia H. Woodcock, MBA, at the 28th Annual National Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) Conference in Arlington, VA, which took place September 10 through 13, 2012. This session, entitled Assessing Family Caregiver Needs: The New Frontier, included presentations from the AARP Public Policy Institute and the Family Caregiver Alliance. The presentation, entitled New Jersey Care Partner Support Pilot Program: Findings, discussed highlights of Hilltop’s evaluation of the Pilot Program, which was designed to improve the knowledge and skills of family caregivers for beneficiaries enrolled in waiver programs following a caregiver self-assessment. Implications for health care and social service professionals to better recognize and support families as partners in care and recommendations for further expansion of caregiver assessments were addressed.

Hilltop Senior Research Analyst Michael T. Abrams, MPH, explores the opportunities and challenges pertaining to the enhanced integration/coordination of substance use disorder (SUD) treatments into the publicly financed health care delivery system in a report entitled Coordination of Care for Persons with Substance Use Disorders under the Affordable Care Act: Opportunities and Challenges. Read the report. View the Bulletin. Contact Michael Abrams.

Hilltop Director of Special Studies Ian Stockwell, MA, was a panelist in an August 21, 2012, session at the Medicaid Enterprise Systems conference held August 19 through 23, 2012, in Boston, Massachusetts. In the session, titled Improving Health Outcomes through Coordinated Care Strategies, Stockwell discussed how Hilltop’s efficient Software as a Service (SaaS) model is improving Maryland’s performance monitoring capabilities, reducing providers’ administrative burden, and improving care coordination for recipients. To learn more, contact Ian Stockwell.

The Hilltop Institute is the co-recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grant entitled Multiple-Impact Effectiveness of a State-Supported Employment Policy Initiative. The project will study the economic and health impacts of evidence-based supported-employment (SE) strategies for persons in Maryland Medicaid with serious mental illness (SMI). Such strategies were aggressively expanded in the mid- to late 2000s, the time frame of this investigation. The research effort will integrate data from several sources, including Maryland Medicaid and public mental health system claims, in order to evaluate the intensity of SE therapy received, as well as health and employment outcomes that appear to follow from that treatment. David Salkever, PhD, professor in UMBC’s Department of Public Policy, is the principal investigator on this work. Hilltop Senior Research Analyst Michael Abrams, MPH, will lead the Hilltop team for this project, which will also include Senior Programmer Jack Clark.

The Hilltop Institute is pleased to announce the success of its sixth invitational symposium, Information Follows the Person: Advancing LTSS Integrated Electronic Records, which convened on June 14, 2012. To learn more about the speakers, view the presentations, and see the agenda, click here. To view the bulletin, click here.

The Hilltop Health Care Reform Simulation Model, a financial modeling tool that projects the costs and savings to states as they implement the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), is now available to states who want to use it to make these projections. To view the Bulletin about the model, click here.