Receipt of Out-of-State Telemedicine Visits Among Medicare Beneficiaries During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Importance: Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, states implemented temporary changes allowing physicians without a license in their state to provide care to their residents. There is an ongoing debate at both the federal and state levels on whether to change licensure rules permanently to facilitate out-of-state telemedicine use.

Objective: To describe out-of-state telemedicine use during the pandemic.

Exploring static and dynamic relationships between burden of disease and research funding in the United States.

Background: The relationship between burden of disease and research funding has been examined cross-sectionally, but temporal patterns have not been investigated. It is logical to assume that temporal improvements in disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) reflect benefits from research funding; such assumptions are tempered by an unknown lag time for emergence of benefits from research.

Methods: We studied National Institutes of Health (NIH) research fund allocations and United States DALY estimates for overlapping disease categories (matched disease categories, MDC, N = 38).

New evidence of state variation in Medicaid payment policies for dual Medicare-Medicaid enrollees.

Objective: To develop the first longitudinal database of state Medicaid policies for paying the cost sharing in Medicare Part B for services provided to dual Medicare-Medicaid enrollees ("duals") and an index summarizing the impact of these policies on payments for physician office services.

Data Sources: Medicaid policy data collected from electronic sources and inquiries with states.

Study Design: We constructed a national database of Medicaid payment policies for the period 2004-2018, consolidating information from online Medicaid policy documents, state laws, and policy data reported to us by state Medicaid programs.

A task shifting mental health program for an impoverished rural Indian community.

Psychiatric disorders constitute a major source of disability across the globe. In India, individuals with mental disorders are diagnosed and treated inadequately, particularly in under-served rural areas. We implemented and evaluated a psychiatric 'task shifting' program for a rural, marginalized, impoverished South Indian tribal community.