The Workforce Solutions Partnership, a collaboration of The National Council for Mental Wellbeing, The College for Behavioral Health Leadership, and Health Management Associates has worked since 2021 to create both short and long-term solutions addressing the behavioral health workforce crisis. In this whitepaper, we issue a Call to Action to partners across all sectors to … Read More
HMA Prepares Health and Human Services Assessment for the City of Watertown
March 4, 2025
On Tuesday, February 25, 2025, the Watertown City Council unanimously endorsed the recommendations of a year-long health and human services assessment prepared by HMA for the City of Watertown, Massachusetts. The report, released in November 2024, included a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the community’s health and human service needs and recommended resources to fill … Read More
On Rare Disease Day, HMA releases new report analyzing federal spending on Orphan Drugs
February 28, 2025
Rare Disease Day is observed globally each year on February 28 to raise awareness, access, and diagnosis to therapies for people with rare diseases. Today HMA releases a report titled Analyzing the Impact of Policies to Exclude Certain Orphan Drugs from the Drug Price Negotiation Program of the Inflation Reduction Act, that examines how many orphan … Read More
State Cost Growth Benchmarking Programs: An Evaluation of Eight States’ Experiences and the Lessons Stakeholders Have Learned
February 25, 2025
Background In 2024, Health Management Associates (HMA) evaluated programs implemented by eight states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington) aimed at controlling healthcare cost growth. In recent years, these states have tried to address the trend of escalating healthcare costs using an approach referred to as cost growth benchmarking (CGB). … Read More
Medicare Hospital Inpatient Device-Intensive Payment Policy
February 13, 2025
Medicare’s fee-for-service (FFS) payment system includes payment policies that support providers’ use of innovative medical device technologies. The continued evolution of these policies is necessary to keep pace with current and future medical innovation. In this report, HMA summarizes models testing the implementation of a newly proposed policy for the hospital inpatient system which aims … Read More
HMA helps navigate dQM to improve health outcomes
February 13, 2025
The healthcare industry is undergoing a seismic shift in how quality data are collected and reported, creating opportunities to use digital quality measures (dQM) to significantly improve health outcomes and efficiency. Starting in January 2027, new federal interoperability and prior authorization rules will promote widespread data exchange, enabling full digital quality measurement. Payers and providers … Read More
340B Duplicate Discounts: Enforcement Inconsistent and Weak Due to Lack of Data Transparency and Despite Federal Prohibition
February 10, 2025
At the intersection of the federal 340B Drug Pricing program and the federal Medicaid Drug Rebate Program (MDRP), a potentially large set of Medicaid claims are generating duplicate discounts, which pharmaceutical manufacturers provide to eligible entities such as hospitals and health centers. These two complex federal programs were designed to reduce the costs of prescription … Read More
Los Angeles County State of Children’s Health Report: Policy Briefs
January 14, 2025
Informed by research and exploration of the on some of the most complex challenges facing children in a post-pandemic world, experts from L.A. Care Health Plan, the nation’s largest publicly operated plan, and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), one of the nation’s leading pediatric hospitals, unveiled their first-ever Los Angeles County State of Children’s Health … Read More
Substance Use Disorder in California – A Focused Landscape Analysis
August 26, 2024
HMA found that the substance use disorder treatment system, which sits outside of specialty mental health and mild-to-moderate mental health services, results in an inconsistent and siloed system. The delivery of programs and services across the state vary because of differences in geography (rural, suburban, and urban densities) as well as county participation in the … Read More
State Approaches to Managing the Medicaid Pharmacy Benefit
August 20, 2024
Millions of Americans rely on Medicaid drug coverage to treat acute illnesses and manage chronic and disabling conditions. Though optional, all states provide pharmacy benefits under Medicaid but administer the benefit in different ways in accordance with federal guidelines. To better understand how states across the country administer the Medicaid pharmacy benefit, as well as … Read More