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Every year, at least $60 billion in public benefits goes unused nationally. That means tax relief, health insurance, and help with food, housing, and transportation never reach people they are intended for. Public benefits are associated with better health, lower costs, and community growth, so hospitals want to connect patients with them. Two studies by […]

The seismic departures in the nursing workforce threaten to impair access and quality of care across the country. And these trends concerned health care leaders and policymakers even before the major disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, hospitals continue struggling to fill openings even though the U.S. has never had more actively-licensed nurses (5.6 million), […]

Artificial intelligence (AI) holds promise to advance mental health care, with potential applications including the use of social media data to predict depression and the use of chatbots to help fill gaps in the availability of therapists. But are such technologies exempt from the racial disparities that plague other health care algorithms? And are the […]

The White House announced on April 26 that it would indefinitely delay the ban on menthol cigarette sales. If passed, this ban would have averted over 650,000 deaths over the next 40 years, and would have led 4.5 million Americans who smoke menthol cigarettes to quit entirely. This delay means that menthol cigarettes will continue […]

The following excerpt is from an op-ed that first appeared in STAT News on May 10th, 2024. Pizza. Coloring books. Goody bags. They could be activities at a 5-year-old's birthday party. But they're not: These are many employers' attempts to lift the morale of nurses on the frontlines of chronically understaffed organizations. What nurses really want are better […]

The following excerpt is from an op-ed that first appeared in The Hill on May 9th, 2024. To appreciate one of the great snafus of American health care, consider the plight of people who are poor, elderly — often with a disability — and insured by both Medicare and Medicaid.   One might think having two insurers must be better […]

Yes [social needs information belongs in the chart]. I feel like that's good to know. I feel like if it something that you need help with or anything, I feel like it should be in the chart because it'll give you a better sense of who that person is or what type of environment they […]

As the world grapples with the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the migration of health care professionals has emerged as a critical issue requiring the attention of policymakers in the U.S. and across the world. The problem lies in an imbalance in how workers are distributed, both domestically and globally. International migration to high-income countries […]

In recent years, artificial intelligence has reached many parts of health care, and other health care algorithms are now part of everyday practice in clinical care, resource allocations, and health care management. Diagnostic and predictive algorithms have become popular because they enable automation of common tasks and provide insight for difficult decisions. But many algorithms […]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, communicating what people needed to know about the virus posed a supreme challenge to health officials. While most communications research had been done on diseases with stable risks and clear measures, the virus was novel and the pandemic was fast changing. The advice about ways to combat it seemed to shift by […]

The following first appeared in Health Affairs Forefront on April 4th, 2024. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) remains committed to episode-based payment models as part of its multidimensional strategy to advance accountable care. Its most recent bundled payment program, Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) Advanced, has been extended through 2025. In 2023, CMS announced plans to develop a new […]

Christopher Allen was ready for a fresh start. On an unseasonably warm afternoon in March, Allen, in his early 30s, walked to the 6800 block of Woodland Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia, where a Mobile Overdose Surge Response Bus from Prevention Point Philadelphia, a nonprofit public health agency, was parked. In an almost street-fair-like atmosphere, snacks, […]

The Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion has been instrumental in improving health outcomes for those who gained coverage and for boosting the finances of providers across multiple U.S. health care sectors. However, the extent to which Medicaid expansion affects economic outcomes among health care workers, especially lower-income workers, is not well understood. These questions are […]

We all agree that we should do what we can to ensure that children thrive. But legislators often lack the will to act on opportunities to do just that. Children from racial minority groups too often bear a higher burden from those failures to act. A proposed expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) — […]

The growth of private equity investment in health care is facing sharp scrutiny from investors, regulators, and the public. Some view private equity as a key to transforming the U.S. health system. Others raise concerns that profits for corporate investors will be at the expense of patients' health, workers' safety, and affordability. LDI Senior Fellows […]