HPI Seminar Schedule 2021 - 2022
Stay tuned as the speaker schedule gets updated.
All seminars are from 1pm - 2pm, unless otherwise noted.
August 11, 2021
Mahnum Shahzad, PhD | Research Fellow, Health Policy and Insurance Research, Department of Population Medicine
Volume responses to confirmatory trials for accelerated approval of drugs
September 22, 2021
Saumya Chatrath, PhD | Research Fellow, Health Policy and Insurance Research, Department of Population Medicine
Marketplace Special Enrollment Period: Examining Selection and Utilization
ACA Marketplace Special Enrollment Period (SEP) enrollees have higher costs than Open Enrollment Period (OEP) enrollees. In this project we seek to establish whether SEP enrollees are sicker than OEP enrollees, or whether they are more likely to seek predictable or discretionary care. We find that SEP enrollees are more likely than OEP enrollees to require medical care across all types of utilization. We also analyze the consequences of a CMS rule change in June 2016 that tightened eligibility verification requirements for SEP enrollees and find that it disproportionately reduced enrollment among patients seeking predictable medical care.
October 13, 2021
Christina Nyquist, BA | Head of Federal Affairs, Point32Health; PCORI Advisory Panel on Clinical Effectiveness and Decision Sciences; NAHU Board of Directors of the National Association of Underwriters with panelists
Katherine Kilrain, JD, MBA | Federal Affairs Team, Point32Health
Nicole Waikman, BA, MS | Federal Affairs Team, Point32Health
Point32Health, Public Policy, Public Health
November 17, 2021
Natalia Kunst, PhD | Research Fellow, Health Policy and Insurance Research, Department of Population Medicine
Improving medical decision making: Evidence and uncertainty considerations
Medical decision making is based on imperfect information, often leading to uncertainty in the expected outcomes, decision uncertainty, and potential negative consequences of making wrong decisions. To guide decision makers with model-based cost-effectiveness analyses, it is crucial to ascertain that the decision problem and the decision-analytic model are appropriately conceptualized, and that the model is populated with reliable evidence. Furthermore, evidence plays a central role in the process of model-based decision analysis. This evidence drives the iteration in the decision-making process. To ensure this iteration, a value of information analysis should be performed as a part of the evaluation to assess decision uncertainty, evaluate whether gathering new evidence would be worthwhile, and identify the optimal designs of research. In this seminar, I will present an iterative decision-making framework in health and medicine including application examples.
December 8, 2021
Gina Kruse, MD, MPH, MS | Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School, Division of General Internal Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital
Community Engaged Research Methods and Examples
January 12, 2022
Mark Friedberg, MS, MPP | SVP, Performance Measurement & Improvement, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts
BCBSMA's initiatives on quality, equity, and behavioral insights
February 9, 2022
Sarah Gordon, MS, PhD | Assistant Professor, Health Law, Policy and Management, Boston University
Beyond 60 Days: Implications of Postpartum Medicaid Eligibility and Enrollment on Coverage, Utilization, and Spending in the Postpartum Year
The 2021 American Rescue Plan Act enables states to lengthen pregnancy-related Medicaid eligibility from the current sixty days after birth to up to one year, and nearly three-quarters of states have taken action to do so. Using linked birth records, income, and all-payer claims data for Medicaid-paid births in Colorado from 2014–19, we assessed the association between retaining Medicaid after pregnancy-related eligibility ends 60 days postpartum and coverage, utilization, and spending outcomes in the postpartum year. We first employed an income-based regression discontinuity design to assess the effect of retaining postpartum Medicaid eligibility as a low-income adult on continuity of coverage in the postpartum year, finding that Medicaid retention was associated with longer enrollment and fewer coverage disruptions. We then implemented a cross-sectional analysis to compare health care use and spending among those continuously enrolled in Medicaid versus commercial insurance during months 3-12 postpartum. We found that total spending and out-of-pocket costs were higher in commercial insurance compared to Medicaid during this period, while primary care use was higher and emergency department use was lower in commercial insurance compared to Medicaid. Findings suggest that states that adopt the American Rescue Plan Act option are likely to improve continuity of postpartum insurance coverage and decrease exposure to out-of-pocket costs for low-income postpartum individuals.
March 9, 2022
Yuhua Bao, PhD | Associate Professor, Department of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine
Policies addressing unsafe opioid prescribing: Intended and unintended consequences
April 13, 2022
Alyce Sophia Adams, MPP, PhD | Stanford Medicine Innovation Professor and Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health, of Medicine (Primary Care and Outcomes Research) and, by Courtesy, of Pediatrics (Endocrinology), Associate Director for Health Equity and Community Engagement in the Stanford Cancer Institute.
Presentation Title TBD
May 11, 2022
Yanlei Ma, PhD, MSc | Research Fellow, Health Policy and Insurance Research, Department of Population Medicine
Effects of State Mandatory Paid Sick Leave on Emergency Department Use
July 20, 2022
Alison McClean, BSc, PharmD | Research Fellow, Health Policy and Insurance Research, Department of Population Medicine
Biosimilars policy and utilization in Canada and US Medicare