Ben King is joining our editorial team at The Medical Care Blog! Dr. King (he/him) is currently an Assistant Professor of Population Health at the new Tilman J Fertitta Family College of Medicine at the University of Houston. He has additional appointments in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, with the UH-Humana Integrated Health… Read More »
California just took a significant step toward single payer health care. On Oct 7, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 770 (Unified Health Care Financing) into law. Introduced by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), the law directs the Secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency to research, develop and pursue a waiver framework… Read More »
This month’s topic focuses on suicide and social determinants of health (SDoH) Welcome to the Healthy Intersections podcast for October, 2023. Today’s podcast focuses on the links between suicide and social determinants of health in the United States. Suicide is one of the causes of deaths of despair, along with deaths from drugs and alcohol.… Read More »
The postpartum period, recognized as the fourth trimester or the 12 weeks after birth, is often overlooked. In 2021, 52% of all maternal deaths occurred during the postpartum period. And mental health was the top underlying cause, accounting for 23% of all deaths (mostly suicides and overdoses related to substance use disorder). More than 60%… Read More »
Representation matters to health. Improving pathways into health care and public health is an important way to increase workforce diversity. This is a crucial step in reducing health disparities and advancing health equity in the U.S. Black, Latinx, and American Indian and Alaska Native communities face higher rates of chronic and life-threatening health conditions. Yet… Read More »
Happy fall! This month’s Healthy Intersections Podcast focuses on food and climate — a timely topic during the fall harvest months. Food insecurity and food quality are known as important social determinants of health. For example, the percent of residents receiving food assistance (eg, SNAP) is associated with neighborhood life expectancy. On the other hand,… Read More »
What if there was a public health problem so big that even public health leaders were too enmeshed in its grip to be able to warn against its perils? I worry that we are in that very conundrum with regard to our relationship with technology. It has accelerated from being part of our world to… Read More »
This entry was one of the winners of our Summer 2023 student blog contest! Trends in Life Expectancy The recent decline in life expectancy in the United States is largely attributed to the well-known COVID-19 pandemic and opioid epidemic. However, these recent crises are not the sole drivers of the stagnation and subsequent drop in… Read More »
This entry was one of the winners of our Summer 2023 student blog contest! Anti-LGBTQ laws are flooding the United States. As of June, a historic 491 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in 2023 – a 203% increase from the entire 2022 year. More bills were introduced in the first three months of 2023 than… Read More »
Known as the fourth trimester of care, postpartum care has become unaffordable for many women. The costs of care are increasing, due to rising deductibles, increasing chronic diseases, and a lack of access to Medicaid. While postpartum care technically refers to the 12-week period after delivery, there is a movement to recognize that adequate postpartum… Read More »
Hi everyone! We’re excited to share the August edition of our Healthy Intersections Podcast with you. This month, we hosted Dr. Amanda Onwuka, a social epidemiologist and health services researcher at RTI International, as well as Jeremy Ney, author of American Inequality. We talk about the epidemic of drug overdose deaths in the US, mental… Read More »
The ACA marketplaces continue to be an important source of health insurance for millions of Americans. Achieving health equity for these enrollees may require more than simply providing coverage. The number of individuals who selected a Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace plan increased from 8 million [PDF] in 2014 to 16 million [PDF] in 2023.… Read More »
When Mark Finney moved to southwestern Virginia with his young family a decade ago, there were different hospital systems and a range of independent doctors to choose from. But when his knee started aching in late 2020, he discovered that Ballad Health was the only game in town: He went to his longtime primary care… Read More »
A special dispatch from AcademyHealth’s Annual Research Meeting in Seattle, June 2023 This post recaps a panel discussion focused on Measuring Impact of Policy Strategies on Health Equity. I was fortunate to be among the panelists. My talk focused on 7 common mistakes when conducting evaluation and health equity-focused research. In this post, I share… Read More »
Welcome to the July 2023 episode of the Healthy Intersections podcast! This month, we talk about the state of Florida with Lauren Pierce, who formerly worked at the Florida Department of Public Health and is a long-term resident of Tallahassee. We debut the brand new RTI Rarity™ interactive national dashboard and focus on northern Florida,… Read More »
Last month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center announced its newest alternative payment model for primary care, Making Care Primary (MCP). MCP builds upon lessons learned from previous CMS primary care models: the Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative, the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) initiative, the Maryland Primary Care Program, and Primary… Read More »
The way we’re addressing substance use and overdoses in the United States isn’t working. Let’s be perfectly clear: the “war on drugs” isn’t, and never was, really a war on drugs. It’s been a war waged on communities who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). The war on drugs started well before President… Read More »
Over the past 25 years, significant strides have been made in shifting services for people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease to home and community settings. Home and community-based services (HCBS) enable people with various forms of dementia to receive care in a familiar setting while promoting their independence, well-being, and overall quality of life. As… Read More »
Public health saved your life today, but you probably didn’t know it. That was one of the valuable take-home messages from Dr. Leana Wen, when she spoke to public health students and early career professionals at California State University Los Angeles. Dr. Wen was the culminating speaker in our semester-long series on public health leadership.… Read More »
Welcome to the June 2023 episode of the Healthy Intersections podcast! This month, we sit down again with Carol Schmitt, Chief Scientist at RTI International, along with Juliet Sheridan, to talk about another of the RTI Rarity interactive state maps. This time, we are looking at North Carolina. We talk about historical redlining, climate change,… Read More »
See yourself as a leader. That is one of the key messages from Jackie Valenzuela, Chief Advisor to the County Health Officer of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. She has held multiple leadership positions within the one of nation’s largest public health departments. And she recounts coming to them by being open… Read More »
Don’t wait to lead. That is a key message from Dr. Chris Chanyasulkit, the president of the American Public Health Association (APHA). And it resonates with many students and early career professionals anxious to make a change. Our conversation with Dr. Chanyasulkit was the first in a series on public health leadership. The Department of… Read More »
Racial justice reframing is the process of shifting our attention from individual choices to the many structural and societal factors that contribute to health inequities. This framing allows us to picture a world where values of equity, shared responsibility, and community care are paramount. We see a world where everyone – regardless of their identities… Read More »
Over the next month, The Medical Care Blog will feature a new series of posts on public health leadership. The goal is to help better prepare public health students and early career professionals for the many leadership challenges that await. Public health has a problem Whether it is COVID-19, drug overdoses or gun deaths, the… Read More »
Welcome to the May, 2023 episode of the Healthy Intersections podcast! This month, we sit down again with Carol Schmitt, Chief Scientist at RTI International, to talk about another of the RTI Rarity interactive state maps. This time, we are looking at Oklahoma. You can watch the episode, download the audio file, and read the… Read More »
The pandemic public health emergency declaration ends today in the United States. Here, I share a look back and what to expect going forward. One thing is clear: with this change in designation, the U.S. has revealed that its public health preparedness was always meant to be temporary. Where we started It was December 12,… Read More »
Now more than ever, we need students engaged in improving healthcare access, delivery, and quality. The Medical Care Blog is committed to elevating student voices on these and other public health topics. To encourage excellent student blog posts, we are sponsoring a blogging competition with the Medical Care Section of the American Public Health Association. Our first… Read More »
“Access for the sake of access or inclusion is not necessarily liberatory, but access done in the service of love, justice, connection, and community is liberatory and has the power to transform.” – Mia Mingus, community organizer, disability and transformative justice advocate Are you designing with equity and inclusion in mind? For public health and… Read More »
The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underserved communities underscored the need for systemic change and renewed efforts to reduce health disparities in people with social risks. This post describes a partnership between Inovalon and Humana to develop a new health equity composite quality measure to identify disadvantaged populations with the largest care disparities and determine… Read More »
Primary care in the US is segregated by racial/ethnic identification. What are the implications? Most people in the US are aware that our neighborhoods are often highly segregated by race and ethnicity. Racism — historical and current, structural and individual — plays a role in neighborhood demographics. The same forces also result in segregated workplaces,… Read More »
Originally published April 6, 2023; updated April 24, 2023 to add audio links. Welcome! April 2023 marks a new milestone for the Healthy Intersections Podcast (HIP), sponsored by the American Public Health Association’s Medical Care Section. I’m taking on the role of the main producer of HIP. We’re also moving to a video AND audio… Read More »
Pain was widely under-treated in the 1980s. Two decades ago, pain was recognized as an important problem that needed to be managed by healthcare providers. Today, the opioid crisis has led to under-treatment once again. Professional recognition of pain as a symptom that needs managing was the eventual outcome of several decades of research. Again… Read More »
The rapid transition from in-person to care to telemedicine visits at the start of the COVID‑19 pandemic did not adversely affect the quality of care – and even improved some aspects of care – for patients with major depression in a major integrated health system, according to a new report. The study appears as part of… Read More »
This month’s podcast features a review of last month’s blog posts, a preview of what is begin published in the April issue of the journal and an interview with Dr. Daniel Harris, whose recent paper discusses the use of antipsychotics in nursing homes. Listen here or via your favorite podcast platform.
Eli Lilly & Co.’s announcement that it is slashing prices for its major insulin products could make life easier for some diabetes patients while easing pressure on Big Pharma. It also casts light on the profiteering methods of the drug industry’s price mediators — the pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs — at a time when… Read More »
Medicare Advantage should be making news. It’s not because the Medicare trust fund continues to run on fumes, which it does. Nor is it because Medicare was taken “off the table” in recent debates about cutting the federal budget, which it was. Rather, it should be getting a lot of attention for new data about its… Read More »
Public health has preached a lot of things in the three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has promoted social distancing, masks, vaccines, and quarantine to help prevent the spread. And it has helped spread awareness about antivirals for people infected with COVID-19. But what about “social fitnessing”? This is the premise that the… Read More »
This month’s podcast features a round-up of this month’s blog posts and a summary of three articles recently published in the journal Medical Care. Listen here or via your favorite podcast platform! Transcript Hello friends. Welcome to the Healthy Intersections Podcast for February 2023. This podcast is sponsored by the American Public Health Association’s Medical… Read More »
An Opportunity to Get Ahead of the Overdose Crisis For many Americans, drug use ‘prevention’ conjures memories of early public health campaigns using fearsome imagery and catchy slogans to deter substance use. Campaigns implored youth to “just say no” to drugs, and the public received stark warnings: “this is your brain on drugs.”
This month’s podcast features a round-up of this month’s blog posts and an interview with Sungchul Park of Drexel University about his recent Medical Care paper on Medicare Advantage Star Ratings and disparities in ambulatory care sensitive hospitalizations. Listen here or via your favorite podcast platform! Transcript (partial): Hello listeners, and welcome to the Healthy… Read More »
It isn’t what supporters of single-payer health care might prefer. But a Medicaid-for-all program, based on the already expansive safety-net program, might open new doors to universal coverage. And rising familiarity with the program is creating a window of opportunity. My realization began with several conversations First, it was a friend going through a divorce… Read More »
To address calls for improving health equity, organizations could consider using CLAS Standards to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In recent years, health organization leaders have prioritized the need to address systemic inequities. A 2021 survey of health care organizations identified health equity as a top priority [pdf]. This focus has grown since the… Read More »
Community-based clinicians sometimes see patients who have been recently released from immigration detention. Those encounters can be challenging, especially when patients reveal health harms experienced while in detention. It is obviously critical that clinicians provide high-quality medical care and address any health issues potentially brought about or exacerbated by their detention history. But do they… Read More »
Dear readers, it’s been awhile since we published a “top posts of the year” roundup! In fact, we haven’t published one since 2018. So, as we wrap another eventful year of blogging at the intersection of public health and medicine, our holiday gift to you is here! Oh – and we’re still one of the… Read More »
Patient experience surveys are a cornerstone of public reporting and pay-for-performance initiatives. Some healthcare providers, payers, and other stakeholders have expressed concerns about declining response rates and representativeness of these surveys [pdf], especially for underserved groups. Increasing response rates is an important goal. Several strategies have been proposed to increase response rates, including administering surveys… Read More »
In this month’s podcast, co-editor Jess Williams recaps blog posts from November and talks about some December journal articles. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Transcription Welcome back to Healthy Intersections, the podcast of themedicalcareblog.com. In this month’s episode, I’ll review some of our blog entries from November and give you a preview… Read More »
Telehealth–the ability for providers to care for patients using computers, tablets, or smartphones–has the potential to expand access to healthcare by allowing people to interact with providers remotely. However, there are disparities in access to the technology that makes it possible to use telehealth. For example, in analyzing Census data on availability of widely used… Read More »
Better care coordination may improve access to primary care for people who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. Recent evaluations of the Financial Alignment Initiative (FAI)–an initiative incentivizing the financial alignment of Medicare and Medicaid–suggests care coordination could improve access to primary care services for some dually eligible beneficiaries. Care coordination alone, however, may… Read More »
It is more important than ever to expand access to a broad range of safe and effective contraceptives that includes long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) methods. We are living in a new era in the US. As of early November, 2022, abortions are banned from the point of conception in 12 states and severely restricted in… Read More »
In this month’s podcast, Dr. Samy Anand gives an overview of The Medical Care Blog posts published in October and a preview of the journal articles in the November issue of Medical Care. Then, co-editor of the blog, Dr. Gregory Stevens, discusses the results of the midterm election and the results of ballot measures relevant to… Read More »