April 2003
DHHS, Health Resources and Services Administration
This report, prepared by The Lewin Group for HRSA, analyzes the health workforce implications of a growing and aging population that is also becoming more racially and ethnically diversity. In addition to an extensive literature review, the report presents findings from The Physician Aggregate Requirements Model (PARM) quantifying the expected increase in percentage of physicians' time spent treating elderly and minority patients. These findings have implications for the types of work physicians will be providing in future years (e.g., relatively more cardiology and less pediatric work), and the increased importance of providing culturally competent care as minorities become a larger share of total patients. At the same time that the U.S. population is aging and demanding more healthcare services, the health workforce is aging with significant numbers of physicians and nurses nearing traditional retirement age. The aging population and other societal trends have implications for where patients will receive healthcare services--such as a greater reliance on professional nursing and less reliance on informal care provided by family members.
Client Area: Federal Government
Expertise Area: Health Professionals Workforce
April 2003
DHHS, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)
Welfare and child support programs have long been intertwined. Given the common populations served and the role that child support payments play in self-sufficiency and cost recovery, understanding the interaction between child support and welfare is important. The Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) funded a study to examine this interaction. This literature review is the first report from this important study. A future report will present findings from analyses of several datasets examining the extent of child support receipt among current and former welfare clients and the contribution of payments to self-sufficiency.
Client Area: Federal Government
Expertise Area: Income Security
March 2003
Social Security Administration
This report presents findings from the preliminary process evaluation of the Ticket to Work program (TTW), a program established by the 1999 Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act (Ticket Act), designed to increase access to, and the quality of, rehabilitation and employment services available to Social Security disability beneficiaries. TTW incorporates the cost-reimbursement payment system that SSA has used in the past to pay state vocational rehabilitation agencies (SVRAs) for rehabilitation services provided to beneficiaries, provided that the beneficiary obtains earnings of at least the substantial gainful activity (SGA) level for nine months. Added to this performance-based system are two new payment systems with substantially stronger performance incentives, that can be used by either SVRAs or other qualified organizations, called Employment Networks (ENs): the outcome and milestone-outcome payment systems. Under both new systems, beneficiaries must exit cash benefit status on the disability rolls by reason of increased earnings for 60 months for SVRAs and ENs to receive full payment. The outcome payment system potentially pays more, but requires cash benefits to be zero before any payments are made, while the milestone-outcome system provides early payments based on achievement of earnings targets, even if cash benefits are never reduced to zero. SVRAs and ENs must each choose one of the two new payment systems, but SVRAs can also elect to use cost reimbursement on a case-by-case basis.
The report is based on in-person and phone interviews conducted with staff from: SSA; MAXIMUS, the contractor hired to be TTW's Program Manager (PM); and 27 ENs and the 13 SVRAs serving beneficiaries in the 13 states that participated in Phase 1 of the TTW rollout: Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, and Wisconsin. We also reviewed numerous documents and conducted limited analyses of administrative data. The data for this report was collected and synthesized during the July through November 2002 period, and thus, with a few exceptions, represent the status of TTW as of that time.
Client Area: Federal Government
Expertise Area: Employment, Training, and Workforce Development
January 2003
Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
This report explores the relationship between non-monetary eligibility policies and practices and program outcomes, such as recipiency and benefit duration. Information is collected on state non-monetary eligibility legislation, policies, and practices for unemployment insurance (UI) programs in a sample of states to document across-state variation that may affect UI recipiency. Research indicates that much of the state-level variation is due to policies, practices, and processes that are not easility captured by administrative data. Thus many of the questions explored during site visits to eight states focus on how UI operates at the ground level and how variation in UI operations helps explain some of the variation in program outcomes across states.
Client Area: Federal Government
Expertise Area: Employment, Training, and Workforce Development
December 2002
DHHS, Administration on Aging
Intended for the staff of State Units on Aging, Area Agencies on Aging, Indian Tribal Organizations, and service providers, this Resource Guide offers practical information to help implement the new National Family Caregiver Support Program (NFCSP). As a Resource Guide—not a handbook of program policies or prescribed procedures—it features examples and resources to stimulate members of the aging network to pursue approaches that afford caregivers flexibility and assistance in meeting caregiver service needs. The information is based on established research and early practice experience and covers: roles of the aging network, profile of family caregivers, systems development, program effectiveness, working with families and other caregivers, NFCSP service components, designing the NFCSP in the context of diverse caregiver populations, and nontraditional approaches.
Client Area: Federal Government
Expertise Area: Aging and Disability
October 2002
DHHS, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment
This analysis aims to compare the performance of the treatment systems located within cities in different geographic regions, an approach to performance measurement and outcomes monitoring that has not previously been done. Using the CSAT Target Cities multi-site data set, the goals of this analysis were to (1) identify and operationalize standardized performance measures that are applicable across treatment systems within cities; (2) illlustrate a type of performance measurement analysis that can be conducted at the treatment system level; (3) assess the relative performance of the treatment systems/cities using the identified performance measures; and (4) highlight the uses, benefits, constraints and data requirements for system-level performance measurement monitoring and comparisons.
Client Area: Federal Government
Expertise Area: Mental Health and Substance Abuse
September 2002
DHHS, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)
The Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) funded this project to learn about the status of policies to support and promote marriage at the state level. It includes policies that have been enacted, as well as those proposed. Also included are policies proposed or adopted prior to PRWORA and those suggested after the law's passage. This report inventories marriage policies in the 50 states and District of Columbia in the following ten areas: Campaigns, commissions and proclamations Divorce laws and procedures Marriage and relationship preparation and education State tax policies State cash assistance policies State Medicaid policies State vital statistics Marriage support and promotion Youth education and development Specialty programs
Client Area: Federal Government
Expertise Area: Children, Youth, and Family Policy
August 2002
DHHS, Health Resources and Services Administration
Lewin contact: Clifford Goodman
This report summarizes a national forum on donor registries convened by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Office of Special Program (OSP), Division of Transplantation (DoT) as part of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services' Gift of Life Donation Initiative. The goals of the conference, held on November 29th and 30th, 2001. were to develop guidelines for successful donor registries; recommend options for a federal role in facilitating effective donor registries; identify strategies to promote commitment and involvement among government entities, organ procurement agencies, and tissue and eye banks; and inform ongoing policy making regarding donation.
Client Area: Federal Government
August 2002
Social Security Administration
The Ticket to Work program (TTW) was established by the 1999 Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act (Ticket Act). The program will provide eligible Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income disability beneficiaries with a Ticket, which can be used to obtain vocational rehabilitation or employment services through an Employment Network. The program is intended to increase access to, and the quality of, rehabilitation and employment services available to disability beneficiaries. TTW is designed to provide beneficiaries with greater freedom and choice of service providers, create competition among providers to provide high quality services that are responsive to beneficiary needs, and give providers incentives to deliver services in the most efficient and appropriate manner to achieve desired outcomes.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) contracted with The Lewin Group to design a comprehensive evaluation of TTW. The Lewin Group teamed with Cornell University, Westat, and a number of independent consultants to conduct the project. The evaluation design developed under this project specifies the methods to be used to compare the net outcomes of TTW to outcomes under the current system, including level of benefits received by beneficiaries, work participation, earnings, duration of benefit receipt, and departures from the disability rolls. The evaluation was also designed to assess the total and net costs of the program, characteristics of ENs and beneficiaries who do and do not participate, factors that affect return to work, employment outcomes for participants, and beneficiary satisfaction with the program.
Client Area: Federal Government
Expertise Area: Employment, Training, and Workforce Development
July 2002
DHHS, HRSA, Bureau of Health Professions
Lewin contact: Paul Hogan
The Lewin Group assisted the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis to prepare supply and demand projections of registered nurses for the period 2000 through 2020. This report consists of three sections. The first presents the National Center’s projections of RN supply and demand, both national and State-specific, for the years 2000 through 2020. The second identifies and discusses the driving forces and trends underlying the projected supply; the third does the same for the projected demand.
Client Area: Federal Government
Expertise Area: Health Professionals Workforce
Showing 41 to 50 of 112 item(s)