Telephone care management's effectiveness in coordinating care for Medicaid beneficiaries in managed care: a randomized controlled study.

Objective: To test the effectiveness of a telephone care management intervention to increase the use of primary and preventive care, reduce hospital admissions, and reduce emergency department visits for Medicaid beneficiaries with disabilities in a managed care setting.

Data Source: Four years (2007-2011) of Medicaid claims data on blind and/or disabled beneficiaries, aged 20-64.

Study Design: Randomized control trial with an intervention group (n = 3,540) that was enrolled in managed care with telephone care management and a control group (n = 1,524) who remained in fee-for-service system without care management services.

The effects of health care benefits on health care use and health: a randomized trial for disability insurance beneficiaries.

Background: Under current law, most Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries are not eligible for Medicare until 29 months after the Social Security Administration determines the onset of their disability. During this waiting period, >1 in 5 lacks health insurance. This study investigated the effects of providing health care benefits on the health, employment, and other services of uninsured beneficiaries.

Does telephone care management help Medicaid beneficiaries with depression?

Objectives: While telephone care management has shown promise as a cost-effective approach to manage patients with depression, there is little evidence on the effectiveness of this method for Medicaid beneficiaries in managed care. This study examines a 1-year telephone care management intervention designed to help this low-income, hard-to-reach population enter and remain engaged with treatment.

Study Design: A randomized controlled trial of 499 Rhode Island Medicaid managed care beneficiaries with depression (all parents, average age of 35, and 90% women).

When is the story in the subgroups? Strategies for interpreting and reporting intervention effects for subgroups.

This paper examines strategies for interpreting and reporting estimates of intervention effects for subgroups of a study sample. The paper considers: why and how subgroup findings are important for applied research, alternative ways to define subgroups, different research questions that motivate subgroup analyses, the importance of pre-specifying subgroups before analyses are conducted, the importance of using existing theory and prior research to distinguish between subgroups for whom study findings are confirmatory (hypothesis testing) as opposed to exploratory (hypothesis generating), and the conditions under which study findings should be considered confirmatory. Each issue is illustrated by selected empirical examples.

Explaining variation in the effects of welfare-to-work programs.

Evaluations of government-funded training programs often combine results from similar operations in multiple sites. Findings inevitably vary. It is common to relate site-to-site variations in outcomes to variations in program design, participant characteristics, and the local environment.