Emergency Department Visits in Massachusetts: Who Uses Emergency Care and Why?

Analyzes the characteristics of working-age adults using emergency departments for non-urgent care, including health, work, and insurance status; demographics; education; income; type and frequency of visit; and remaining barriers to health care

Health Reform in Massachusetts as of Fall 2010: Getting Ready for the Affordable Care Act & Addressing Affordability

Provides updated survey findings about trends since fall 2006 in the insurance coverage, healthcare access and use, costs and affordability, financial difficulties, and attitudes toward state healthcare reform among non-elderly adults in Massachusetts

What Is the Evidence on Health Reform in Massachusetts and How Might the Lessons From Massachusetts Apply to National Health Reform?

Examines the gains in health coverage, healthcare access, use, affordability, and quality Massachusetts has seen as a result of health reform, as well as the challenges in sustaining reform as provider capacity remains limited and healthcare costs rise

Governors' Budgets for FY 2013 - What Is Proposed for Medicaid?

Examines trends in governors' Medicaid budget proposals, including expected shortfalls, fiscal priorities, additional spending cuts, policy actions to control Medicaid costs, and targeted investments, as well as tax cuts and fiscal reform proposals

The transformation of community hospitals through the transition to value-based care: Lessons from Massachusetts

Enabling community hospitals to provide efficient and effective care and maintain competition on par with their academic medical center (AMC) counterparts remain challenges for most states. Advancing accountable care readiness adds to the complexity of these challenges. Community hospitals experience narrower operating margins and more limited access to large populations than their AMC counterparts, making the shift to value-based care difficult. Massachusetts has taken legislative action to ensure a statewide focus on reducing healthcare costs, which includes a nearly $120-million grant program supporting community hospital and system transformation toward a value-based environment. The Massachusetts Health Policy Commission’s Community Hospital Acceleration, Revitalization and Transformation (CHART) investment program is the state’s largest effort to date aimed at readying community hospitals for value-based care. In doing so, Massachusetts has created the largest state-driven, all-payer (payer-blind) readmission reduction initiative in the country. n this paper, we examine the design and evolution of CHART Phases 1 and 2 and offer insights for other states contemplating innovative approaches to bolstering community hospital participation in value-based care models

Moving Ahead Amid Fiscal Challenges: A Look at Medicaid Spending, Coverage and Policy Trends

Examines fiscal year 2011 trends in state efforts to control Medicaid spending, reform payment and delivery systems, and prepare for healthcare reform implementation, as well as projections in spending and enrollment growth for fiscal year 2012

On the Road to Universal Coverage: Impacts of Reform in Massachusetts at One Year

Examines the early results of the state's efforts to achieve near-universal coverage through a combination of Medicaid expansions, subsidized private insurance, insurance market reforms, and required participation by individuals and employers

A Framework for Tracking the Impacts of the Affordable Care Act in California

Recommends measures for monitoring the impact of healthcare reform on insurance coverage, affordability and comprehensiveness of coverage, and access to care; the best data source for each measure; gaps in existing data; and issues for data presentation

Securing a Healthy Future: The Commonwealth Fund State Scorecard on Child Health System Performance, 2011

Ranks states on twenty indicators of healthcare access, affordability, prevention and treatment, potential for healthy lives, and health system equity for children. Examines the need for targeted initiatives and policy implications for better performance

Funding Cuts to Public Health in Massachusetts: Losses Over Gains

Examines ten public health areas, from children's health to substance abuse, and describes the widening health disparities, reduced data collection, and other effects of budget cuts to programs in prevention, outreach, training, and technical assistance