May 2017

Enrollees in Medicaid plans employing prior authorization policies for opioid medications may have lower rates of opioid medication abuse and overdose.

This study investigates the impact of state prescription drug monitoring programs on drug overdose mortality rates for all drug categories.

The healthcare burden of opioid abuse is substantial; abusers often have complex healthcare needs and may require care beyond that which is required to treat abuse.

Across many measures of Veterans Health Administration mental health care program characteristics, treatment continuity is most strongly and positively associated with patient satisfaction.  

This study utilizes a validated instrument to create case and control groups to measure the effect of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA)’s patient-centered medical home (PCMH) model on utilization patterns among veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

This study highlights disparities in care for diabetes and hypertension for individuals with serious mental illness compared with the general Medicaid and Medicare populations.

This study identified populations with non-cancer chronic pain to determine which patients may be more likely to receive an opioid prescription in an outpatient setting.

This study demonstrates that common pharmacy claims-based measures underestimate the effect of actual adherence on inpatient costs among patients with serious mental illness.

A flexible population-based prescription opioid registry was established for addressing a broad range of critical public health questions relating to prescription opioid use.

The authors explore the potential value of providing critical incident stress debriefing for health professionals involved in adverse patient safety events and the instances in which this could be routinely implemented.