With two recently awarded grants, The Hilltop Institute is contributing to the development and deployment of MODRN, developed by members of the State-University Partnership Learning Network (SUPLN) and hosted by AcademyHealth. MODRN facilitates efficient, data-driven, cross-state comparisons of Medicaid initiatives to advance policymaking. The distributed research network model enables high-quality analyses of multiple states’ Medicaid administrative data without the need to share sensitive person-level data across states.

Hilltop, with its nationally recognized 25-year partnership with the Maryland Medicaid program, is one of the founding members of the SUPLN, which now boasts 25 partnerships in 23 states. Cynthia Woodcock, Hilltop’s executive director, chairs the SUPLN steering committee. Julie Donohue, PhD, Professor of Health Policy and Management and Director of the Medicaid Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh, is leading the development of MODRN on behalf of the SUPLN.

Under MODRN, each state-university partnership adopts a common data model, contributes to a common analytic plan, and conducts analyses locally on its own Medicaid data using standardized code. Findings are aggregated and shared across states.

Examining the Quality of Opioid Use Disorder Treatment in a Medicaid Research Network

With funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, researchers from The Hilltop Institute and eight other state/university partnerships—Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin—are harnessing the power of MODRN to assess opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment quality and outcomes in Medicaid with the goal of informing policy decisions on coverage and payment for evidence-based OUD treatments in Medicaid. These states account for 20% of (15 million) Medicaid enrollees. The partnerships have access to complete and recent Medicaid data for their respective states and are employing MODRN and the Medicaid Common Data Model. The nine state partners are now constructing and will report on 15 standardized measures of OUD treatment performance. Then they will link Medicaid claims to vital statistics to examine the association between the quality of OUD treatment and fatal and non-fatal drug overdoses. Finally, the researchers will examine associations between Medicaid coverage policies, OUD treatment quality, and overdose outcomes. Dr. Donohue at the University of Pittsburgh is the principal investigator on this project, and AcademyHealth is coordinating the interstate activities.

Using Section 1115 Demonstration Waivers to Increase Access to Substance Use Disorder Services: Experiences in Virginia and Maryland

With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Research in Transforming Health and Health Care Systems program managed by AcademyHealth, The Hilltop Institute is partnering with researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) to examine the experience with §1115 waivers for substance use disorder (SUD) treatment in Maryland and Virginia. These waivers granted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) enable Maryland, Virginia, and a number of other states to receive federal matching payments for Medicaid beneficiaries aged 21 to 64 who receive inpatient and residential SUD treatment in institutions for mental disease (IMDs). The waivers are intended to increase access to the full continuum of addiction treatment services, improve quality of care and coordination with co-occurring physical and mental health problems, and reduce overdose deaths. To compare and contrast the effect of the waivers in Maryland and Virginia—states with different approaches to addressing the integration of behavioral health and somatic health care and the opioid crisis—Hilltop and VCU will conduct semi-structured interviews with state officials, providers, and other stakeholders, taking advantage of MODRN to analyze Medicaid administrative data. The principal investigator of this work is Peter Cunningham, PhD, at VCU. Cynthia Woodcock, Hilltop’s executive director, is co-principal investigator.

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