News & Events

There are four leading proposals to redesign the Medicare Part D benefit for prescription drugs, and all of them would save the 48 million Americans that have a Part D insurance plan, according to a new analysis of the proposals published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A new Health Affairs study led by Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers raises questions about the long-term benefit and value of the so-called Medicare “Two-Midnight Rule” implemented in 2013 to reduce costly and potentially unnecessary inpatient hospital admissions.

The Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University’s School of Medicine is conducting a targeted search for an open-rank tenure- or non-tenure-track faculty position with a commitment to and record of research in the areas of health decision sciences and cost-effectiveness analyses.  

In a new study, Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) researchers have found an elevated risk of negative outcomes for women who are prescribed opioids for common doses after a Cesarean delivery.

The Department of Health Policy hosted its Research Into Policy and Practice Lecture Series on Aug. 24, which covered proposed reforms to Tenncare, which would overhaul the state's Medicaid program and replace it with a modified aggregate cap model. Watch the webinar, moderated by Melinda Buntin, PhD, Mike Curb Professor of Health Policy and Chair of the Department here. Panelists include Kinika Young, Senior Director of Health Policy at the Tennessee Justice Center and Mandy Pellegrin, Policy Director at the Sycamore Institute.   

A new study from researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center of all deliveries covered by Tennessee’s Medicaid program from 2009-16 (almost 315,000 mother-infant pairs) finds wide disparities in pregnant women receiving medications for opioid-use disorder – medications which have been shown to reduce risk of overdose death and improve pregnancy outcomes.

A new study by Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers of more the 400,000 Medicare patients taking medications for insomnia found that the risk of death is increased when either benzodiazepines or “z-drugs” are taken with opioids.

After a 2020 Vanderbilt University Medical Center study showed women have a difficult time accessing treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD), investigators analyzed comments received from the study’s participants to further shed light on barriers to care, which included everything from long on-hold times to difficult interactions with clinic receptionists during phone calls seeking appointments.

Stacie B. Dusetzina, PhD, associate professor of Health Policy and Ingram Associate Professor of Cancer Research at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine has been appointed to a three-year term on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC).