Top 5 Milbank Memorial Fund Publications of 2024

This year, our five most-read publications (not including Milbank Quarterly articles) included the Primary Care Scorecard; a brief with recommendations for improving health care market oversight at the state level; a blog on the impact of a Supreme Court decision that opened the door to more legal challenges to federal regulations; and more. We hope you’ll check out or revisit these pieces. 

1. The Health of US Primary Care: 2024 Scorecard Report — No One Can See You Now 

The second national Primary Care Scorecard revealed an intensifying primary care crisis and identified five reasons why access to affordable, quality primary care services is expected to get worse. Developed by Yalda Jabbarpour and colleagues at the American Academy of Family Physicians’ Robert Graham Center and co-funded by the Milbank Memorial Fund and The Physicians Foundation, the report and data dashboard examine critical measures of primary care performance nationally and across states. 

2. Models for Enhanced Health Care Market Oversight — State Attorneys General, Health Departments, and Independent Oversight Entities 

To address consolidation of health systems and physician practices, the entry of private equity, and other market changes, some states have strengthened and expanded the authority of their attorneys general, along with their health departments or independent state entities, to review and approve or reject proposed mergers. This report from Erin C. Fuse Brown of Georgia State University and Katherine L. Gudiksen of the Source on Healthcare Price and Competition offered recommendations and policy considerations for state policymakers to strengthen oversight authority of health care transactions.  

3. Impact of Supreme Court Chevron Reversal Decision on Health Policy 

In June, the Supreme Court overturned longstanding precedent by striking down the “Chevron doctrine,” a 40-year-old standard that required courts to defer to federal regulatory agencies to interpret ambiguous laws. This blog from Marci Nielsen explained how it will change the way key health agencies do business — and its impact on state health policy. 

4. Recommendations for a Standardized State Methodology to Measure Clinical Behavioral Health Spending  

Given the rise in the rates of behavioral health conditions, many state officials are looking for ways to track spending on behavioral health treatment in order to measure workforce needs, improve care, set investment targets, and more. In this report, authors from Freedman HealthCare offered recommendations for a standardized state methodology to measure how much payers spend on behavioral health clinical services in a way that allows for comparability across states.  

5. Guides to Hospital Financial Analysis 

This series of Peterson-Milbank analytics support resources offered insight into how to use publicly available data sources to examine the financial condition of hospitals, as well as identify opportunities to reduce health care spending growth.