- Home-Based Primary Care and Emergency Department Use Among Veterans With Dementia: An Instrumental Variable Analysis. [Journal Article]Med Care. 2026 Oct 07. [Online ahead of print]MC
- CONCLUSIONS: Reducing ED visits among people with dementia may signal improved care and offer potential cost-savings to health care systems. Our findings can help inform VHA efforts to invest in the optimal allocation of resources to best support veterans with dementia while containing costs by avoiding potentially avoidable, high-cost care.
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- Chronic Hepatitis B Prevalence and Care Among Medicaid Beneficiaries. [Journal Article]Med Care. 2026 Oct 07. [Online ahead of print]MC
- CONCLUSIONS: Substantial gaps and disparities in CHB monitoring and antiviral use persist among Medicaid beneficiaries highlighting the urgent need for targeted interventions and integration of CHB care into Medicaid quality measures. Standardizing CHB care and reducing demographic and geographic disparities are critical steps toward minimizing CHB-related complications and mortality.
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- Determinants of Delivery Hospital Choice in Georgia, 2016-2021: Maternal Characteristics, Hospital Attributes, and Time Price. [Journal Article]Med Care. 2026 Oct 07. [Online ahead of print]MC
- CONCLUSIONS: Delivery hospital choice in Georgia reflects distance, practice environment, insurance, and clinical complexity, with urban/nonurban differences. Medicaid-insured individuals show delivery patterns consistent with provider supply-side constraints, which may raise concerns to the extent that they face an elevated risk of adverse maternal outcomes. Findings inform payment and referral policies improving access to risk-appropriate delivery settings and reducing maternal health disparities.
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- Medicaid's GLP-1 Coverage Gap: A Familiar and Correctable Policy Failure. [Journal Article]Med Care. 2026 Oct 06. [Online ahead of print]MC
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- Nurse Staffing and Emergency Department Crowding: A 10-State Study. [Journal Article]
- CONCLUSIONS: Staffing a sufficient number of nurses in both the ED and inpatient units is a promising strategy to alleviate ED crowding.
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- The Effects of Inpatient Specialty Consultations on Health and Utilization Outcomes. [Journal Article]Med Care. 2026 Oct 05. [Online ahead of print]MC
- CONCLUSIONS: Specialty consults may reduce readmissions and improve continuity of care without increasing inpatient utilization on average.
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- Postpartum Linkage to Primary Care Among Patients With Diabetes and Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy Following Medicaid ACO Implementation. [Journal Article]Med Care. 2026 Oct 01. [Online ahead of print]MC
- CONCLUSIONS: Massachusetts Medicaid ACO implementation was not associated with significant changes in postpartum primary care linkage. Explicit postpartum performance measures and stronger coordination between maternity and primary care clinicians may be needed to improve transitions to ongoing care.
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- Resources Available for Pulmonary Hypertension Care Across Veterans Health Administration Medical Centers: Results From a Multicenter Survey. [Journal Article]Med Care. 2026 Oct 01. [Online ahead of print]MC
- CONCLUSIONS: Within the largest U.S. integrated health care system, there is a paucity of resources vital for PH care. These findings highlight the need for strategies to build PH-specific resource infrastructure within VA and to better understand how these gaps affect PH care quality.
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- Discrimination Experiences of Latino Health Care Workers in the US Health Care System. [Journal Article]Med Care. 2026 Sep 30. [Online ahead of print]MC
- CONCLUSIONS: Reported discrimination experiences among Latino health care workers vary substantially by Afro-Latino ancestry. Workers reporting Afro-Latino ancestry face and observe higher levels of racial discrimination, highlighting the importance of disaggregating Latino populations in research and policy efforts aimed at reducing inequities in health care delivery and the health care workforce.
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- Variability, Reliability, and Multilevel Determinants of Care Quality for Substance Use Disorders. [Journal Article]Med Care. 2026 Sep 11. [Online ahead of print]MC
- CONCLUSIONS: A low proportion of variation explained implies a larger number of episodes is needed to ensure reliable estimates. Stakeholders should apply IET measures cautiously, ensuring sufficient sample sizes to support robust measurement. Factors associated with a lower probability of meeting quality criteria can inform specific patients who may benefit from efforts to increase IET.
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- Hospital-Based Severe Maternal Morbidity Surveillance and Review: A Strategy for Improving Maternity Care in Maryland. [Journal Article]
- CONCLUSIONS: Maryland established hospital-based SMM surveillance, demonstrated its value, and gained legislative support for statewide scale-up. This model surveillance system can be replicated in other states, aiming to better understand and address SMM and SMM disparities.
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- Implementing Social Risk Screening Across a Pediatric Liver Transplant Learning Health Network: Lessons From the Starzl Network for Excellence in Pediatric Transplantation. [Multicenter Study]Med Care. 2026 Oct 01; 64(10):705-714.MC
- CONCLUSIONS: Efforts to increase adoption should focus on improving practitioners' experiences with the tool as well as further assessing and disseminating its potential value in improving outcomes. Strategies for addressing logistical challenges to adapting workflows and simplifying network data management should be considered. This study establishes a foundation for improving screening rates and data capacity.
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- An Expert-Derived Data-Driven Approach to Identifying Medicaid Children at Risk of Out-of-Home Placement: Development, Application, and Data-Sharing Considerations. [Journal Article]
- CONCLUSIONS: Data-driven risk stratification models have the potential to reduce cost, time, and redundancies in identifying families who would benefit from OOHP prevention supports. Balancing data-sharing challenges with the value gained from linking data is vital.
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- Innovative Data Linkage for Enhancing Identification and Understanding of Social Determinants of Health Among the Medicaid Population. [Journal Article]Med Care. 2026 Oct 01; 64(10):685-695.MC
- CONCLUSIONS: Linking individual-level records between Medicaid and ACS data effectively addresses a crucial gap in current data capacity. The integrated data can be utilized, repurposed, and expanded by incorporating additional survey and administrative records to enhance the utility of Medicaid data for future research.
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- Improving Analysis of Medicaid Enrollee Race and Ethnicity Using Data From a State-Based Marketplace and Regional Health Information Exchange. [Journal Article]Med Care. 2026 Oct 01; 64(10):678-684.MC
- CONCLUSIONS: These results will help stakeholders in Maryland better identify disparities in patient-centered outcomes and advance health equity goals. This methodology can assist researchers and policymakers in other states with similar data quality issues, as part of a larger effort to improve Medicaid race and ethnicity data.
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