This annual report, written for the UMBC community, provides an overview of key projects and staff accomplishments for FY 2024.

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This report describes the services The Hilltop Institute provided to the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) under the Master Agreement between Hilltop and MDH. The report covers fiscal year (FY) 2023 (July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2023). Hilltop’s interdisciplinary staff provided a wide range of services, including Medicaid program development and policy analysis; HealthChoice program support, evaluation, and financial analysis; long-term services and supports program development, policy analysis, and financial analytics; and data management and web-accessible database development.

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This report describes the services The Hilltop Institute provided to the Maryland Department of Health (the Department) under the Master Agreement between Hilltop and the Department. The report covers fiscal year (FY) 2022 (July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2022). Hilltop’s interdisciplinary staff provided a wide range of services, including Medicaid program development and policy analysis; HealthChoice program support, evaluation, and financial analysis; long-term services and supports program development, policy analysis, and financial analytics; and data management and web-accessible database development.

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Using Medicaid data (2017 to 2018) from four states participating in a distributed research network, this retrospective cohort study documents the prevalence of specific types of co-occurring substance use disorder (SUD) among Medicaid enrollees with an opioid use disorder (OUD) diagnosis.

Senior Policy Analyst Shamis Mohamoud and Policy Analyst Rosa Perez were part of the Medicaid Outcomes Distributed Research Network (MODRN) team of authors of this article published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment.

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Follow-up after residential treatment is considered best practice in supporting patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) in their recovery. Yet, little is known about rates of follow-up after discharge. The objective of this analysis was to measure rates of follow-up and use of medications for OUD (MOUD) after residential treatment among Medicaid enrollees in 10 states, and to understand the enrollee and episode characteristics that are associated with both outcomes.

Senior Policy Analyst Shamis Mohamoud was part of the Medicaid Outcomes Distributed Research Network (MODRN) team of authors of this article published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

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In the US, Medicaid covers over 80 million Americans. Comparing access, quality, and costs across Medicaid programs can provide policymakers with much-needed information. As each Medicaid agency collects its member data, multiple barriers prevent sharing Medicaid data between states. To address this gap, the Medicaid Outcomes Distributed Research Network (MODRN) developed a research network of states to conduct rapid multi-state analyses without sharing individual-level data across states.

Senior Policy Analyst Shamis Mohamoud and Director of Medicaid Policy Studies David Idala were part of the Medicaid Outcomes Distributed Research Network (MODRN) team of authors of this article published in Medical Care.

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Medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) reduces harms associated with opioid use disorder (OUD), including risk of overdose. Understanding how variation in MOUD duration influences overdose risk is important as health-care payers increasingly remove barriers to treatment continuation (e.g. prior authorization). This study measured the association between MOUD continuation, relative to discontinuation, and opioid-related overdose among Medicaid beneficiaries.

Senior Policy Analyst Shamis Mohamoud was part of the Medicaid Outcomes Distributed Research Network (MODRN) team of authors of this article published in Addiction.

Read the article online.

This report describes the services The Hilltop Institute provided to the Maryland Department of Health (the Department) under the Master Agreement between Hilltop and the Department. The report covers fiscal year (FY) 2021 (July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021). Hilltop’s interdisciplinary staff provided a wide range of services, including Medicaid program development and policy analysis; HealthChoice program support, evaluation, and financial analysis; long-term services and supports program development, policy analysis, and financial analytics; and data management and web-accessible database development.

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This annual report, written for the UMBC community, provides an overview of key projects and staff accomplishments for FYs 2020 and 2021.

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With funding from the National Institutes on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Medicaid Outcomes Distributed Research Network (MODRN) members and AcademyHealth conducted key informant interviews with nine states to describe the roles that Medicaid programs have taken to address the opioid epidemic and their policy and operational decisions. Hilltop Chief of Staff Alice Middleton, JD, is a co-author of this AcademyHealth report, which presents the findings of this research.

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