Policy & Regulation

Over one million Americans rely on nursing homes for care, yet nursing homes face challenges in recruiting and retaining staff. Nursing homes rely on registered nurses (RNs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs), and nursing assistants (NAs) to provide care, but staff shortages that increased during the COVID-19 pandemic have persisted.

This Issue Brief investigates how health insurance coverage, as well as healthcare access and affordability, has changed in recent years, with an emphasis on policies implemented from 2021 to 2024. Over 300 million Americans now have health insurance coverage. The U.S. uninsured rate has fallen significantly over the past four years.

To explore whether and how the NSA has affected insurer-provider dynamics, contract negotiations, and payment rates, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) asked RAND to conduct discussions with stakeholders. In this report, RAND summarizes the approach exploring these topics, the themes that emerged from our discussions, and areas for additional inquiry.

The goal of this study was to examine the extent to which Medicaid providers who deliver behavioral health services shifted their practices to mostly tele-behavioral health services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) changes the way Medicare pays for prescription drugs. These changes will impact various stakeholders, including Medicare, Medicare enrollees, drug manufacturers, and others.

The generic injectable drug market has recently experienced numerous shortages, which impose substantial public health costs. One potential cause of these shortages is low profitability of generic injectables. This brief examines the profitability of recently launched generic injectables.

This ASPE issue brief lays out a proposed comprehensive analytic framework to fully evaluate the impact of the CMS Innovation Center’s efforts on the Medicare program and the broader health care system as a whole to test innovative payment and service delivery models that reduce program expenditures while preserving or enhancing the quality of care.

March-in authority allows the federal government to grant licenses on privately owned patents for inventions developed with federal funding provided certain statutory requirements are met. It was designed to ensure that the benefits of the American taxpayers’ investment in research and development are reasonably accessible to the public.

During the pandemic period, telehealth utilization increased among both urban and rural enrollees in Medicaid, with urban enrollees sustaining greater gains in telehealth utilization at the end of 2021. This Issue Brief is part of a series of ASPE Issue Briefs examining changes in Medicaid utilization of services delivered via telehealth by enrollee and provider characteristics.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center is in the process of developing the Medicare $2 Drug List (M2DL) Model. This would allow Part D plan sponsors to offer a standardized list of generic drugs for a copayment of $2 or less for a month’s supply that would not be subject to prior authorization, quantity limits, or other utilization management restrictions.