Informing Health Initiatives

Summary of Requests and Assistance Provided, August 2012 – December 2012

A summary of requests to the Center for Financing, Access, and Cost Trends (CFACT) for information to inform health initiatives, and of the assistance provided from August 2012 through December 2012.

Source of Request	Request	Date	Staff Responsible	Assistance Provided
Congressional Budget Office (CBO)	Estimates on Medicaid expenditures of children vs. adults	8/12	Joel Cohen	Provided estimates from the MEPS data to Jessica Banthin of CBO on Medicaid expenditures for children vs. adults.
Government Accounting Office (GAO)	Cost of dental care	9/12	Steve Cohen and Rich Manski	Provided consultation to inform an analysis undertaken by GAO using MEPS data. The three focus areas given attention were: (1) trends in dental costs in the U.S., such as total and per capita expenditures; (2) factors that contribute to dental costs, and (3) how U.S. dental costs compare to other similarly developed countries.
Congressional Budget Office (CBO)	Income-based eligibility for Medicaid before and after implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)	9/12	Tom Selden, Salam Abdus, Julie Hudson, and Steve Hill	Provided information to Jessica Banthin, Alex Minicozzi, Rob Stewart, and Jeanne Heame of CBO on the differences in the calculation of income-based eligibility for Medicaid before and after the implementation of the ACA.
Government Accounting Office (GAO)	Use of Psychotropic Drugs for Children	10/12	Sam Zuvekas	Provided substantive consultation to inform the GAO report, Use of Psychotropic Drugs for Children; and reviewed and provided written comments on the draft, GAO Report on Children's Mental Health (GAO13-15, 290959).
Congressional Budget Office (CBO)	Trends on expenses for emergency room visits	11/12	Joel Cohen	Provided technical assistance to Melinda Buntin of CBO on trends in expenses for visits to the emergency room, from the MEPS data.
Congressional Budget Office (CBO)	Characteristics of individuals newly eligible for Medicaid under provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)	11/12	Tom Selden and Steve Hill	Provided substantive assistance using data from the MEPS to Jessica Banthin of CBO on the characteristics of individuals newly eligible for Medicaid under the provisions of the ACA.
Government Accounting Office (GAO)	Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Benefits and Cost Sharing	12/12	Tom Selden and Steve Cohen	Provided consultation to GAO staff on their project to acquire utilization and access to care estimates for children with CHIP coverage; specifically, to calculate the average number of office visits and prescriptions a child had in 2010.

Requests for data and publications: Descriptive statistics for all assistance provided are available upon request. Please contact Cindy Nunley at cindy.nunley@ahrq.hhs.gov.

Note: HHS is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; MEPS is the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey.

Source: Center for Financing, Access, and Cost Trends, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Page last reviewed January 2013
Page originally created January 2013

Internet Citation: Informing Health Initiatives. Content last reviewed January 2013. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. https://archive.ahrq.gov/policymakers/health-initiatives/summaries/ihisum1212.html