Healthcare Costs & Delivery
Examine the impact of a growing older adult population on healthcare affordability, quality, access, and equity. Browse our articles and research here.
View all in Healthcare Costs & Delivery Topic
Inside the West Health City Checkup
Not one of the 789 cities graded by the West Health City Checkup earned an A. Rockville, Maryland, ranked first in the country, earns the single highest grade anyone achieved: a B+. Its Safety & Security domain, on its own, sits at only the 72nd percentile.1 Strong, not flawless, and that's true of the best report card in America.That's not a flaw in the measurement. It's the finding, and that’s w...
What Is Medicaid? A Guide to Qualifications, What It Covers, & Costs
Key Takeaways: Medicaid covers 74M+ Americans, 41% of U.S. births, and 5 in 8 nursing home residents, making it the largest health insurer in the U.S. Eligibility combines federal rules with state variation; expansion states cover adults up to 138% of the federal poverty level. Mandatory benefits include hospital care, physician services, and nursing facility care; dental, vision, and prescription...
Prescription Drug Costs: Plans, Coverage, & Other Price-Driving Factors
Key Takeaways: U.S. prescription drug spending hit $805.9 billion in 2024, with prices averaging 2.78x higher than 33 other OECD nations. High costs stem from manufacturer pricing power, patent thickets, opaque PBM rebates, and insurance cost-sharing tied to list prices. The IRA capped Medicare Part D out-of-pocket costs at $2,100 in 2026 and enabled the first round of Medicare drug price negotiat...
An In-Depth Look at Behavioral Health Trends
Why Behavioral Health Trends are a Matter of UrgencyAcross the United States, behavioral health symptoms and diagnoses – which encompass mental health and substance use disorders – are on the rise. Because they are common across both adult and pediatric populations, our team of researchers set out to better understand the societal impact of this increase. Our researchers found that behavioral heal...
Association of Dementia Diagnosis with Urinary Tract Infection in the Emergency Department
AbstractObjectivesOverdiagnosis of urinary tract infections (UTI) among people living with dementia is a nationally recognized problem associated with morbidity from antibiotics as well as multidrug-resistant bacteria. However, whether this problem also exists in the emergency department (ED) is currently unknown.MethodsTo examine the association between dementia and UTI diagnosis in the ED we per...
Expanding Access: Collaborative Care in Federally Qualified Health Centers
IntroductionFederally Qualified Health Centers, commonly referred to as FQHCs, are non-profit centers that provide primary medical care to commonly under-resourced and under-served geographic areas and populations. FQHCs receive funding from the federal government through the Health Resources and Services Administration to provide primary care and preventative services using a sliding fee scale ba...
Bright Spots in Measurement-Informed Mental Health Care
What is Measurement-Informed Care?Measurement-informed care (MIC), also known as measurement-based care, involves “regularly and systematically using patient data to inform clinical decisions and improve quality of care.” Patient data enables providers to develop tailored treatment plans that are responsive to patients’ symptoms and goals. In physical health care, MIC is deeply embedded in clinica...
Improving Hospital Compliance With Price Transparency Rules
Price transparency has long been viewed as a critical component of driving competition and consumerism in health care. Until recently, however, price data were largely unavailable and out of reach of nearly all consumers, policymakers, and researchers.Starting January 2021, through the Hospital Price Transparency rule, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) required hospitals to post...
How Much Can Pharma Lose?
IntroductionWhenever policymakers consider approaches to reduce drug spending, the pharmaceutical industry sings a familiar refrain — any reduction in drug manufacturer revenues will cause investment to wither, depriving manufacturers of the resources needed to research and develop future treatments. The empirical validity of this argument has not, to our knowledge, been analyzed. In this analysis...
Protecting Patients from Unexpected Outpatient Facility Fees
In recent years, health care consumers, payers, and policymakers have brought attention to the growing prevalence of hospital outpatient facility fees in the United States. As hospitals and health systems expand their ownership and control of ambulatory care practices, they are typically charging new facility fees for services delivered in these outpatient settings. Consumers, too, are facing grea...