Assessing Payment Models for Mental Health
FACULTY SUPERVISOR:
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
In 2021, 48,000 persons in the U.S. died by suicide. Among the 58 million adults with mental illness the majority did not receive mental health services in the past year. Multiple studies indicate that better integration of general medical, mental health, and substance use disorder treatment improves outcomes for patients. Nonetheless, specialty providers have limited incentive to integrate care as the cost savings rarely accrue to the health systems who would need to make potentially costly investments, including upgrading IT systems and workforce training, to support integrated treatment. Using data from various sources including mental health provider organizations, Medicaid health care claims, and mortality data the prospective pre-doc will work on research examining the effects of several payment models designed to align provider reimbursement with access and the receipt of integrated medical, mental health and substance use disorder treatment.
REQUISITE SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS:
Candidates should have strong programming skills (preferably Stata or R) and a background in economics and statistics. Candidates available for two years are preferred.