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•Accelerated Benefits
Demonstration •Cash and Counseling •Children with Special Health Care Needs •Community Partnerships for Older Adults •Community Treatment Alternatives for Children/Youth with Serious Emotional Disturbances •Demonstration to Maintain Independence and Employment (DMIE) •Diabetes Study of Federal Spending •Dual Eligibles: Monitoring Medicare/Medicaid Expenditures •Helping TANF Recipients with Disabilities Find and Keep Jobs •Medicaid Buy-In Program •Mental Health Services for Veterans •Money Follows the Person •National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services •Residential Treatment in Child/Adolescent Mental Health Services •Ticket to Work •Youth Transition Demonstration
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What Is the Center for Studying Disability Policy?
The Center for Studying Disability Policy was established in 2007 by Mathematica to inform disability policy formation with rigorous, objective research and data collected from the people disability policy aims to serve. The Center supplies the nation's policymakers with the information they need to navigate the transition to 21st-century disability policy. For over two decades, Mathematica has conducted many significant disability studies, including some of the first rigorous evaluations of employment supports for people with severe disabilities and the largest surveys of people with disabilities. More than 30 staff continues this pioneering work today through a wide range of innovative disability research and data collection. Read more.
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The SOAR Initiative: Can It Help End Homelessness?
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March Forum: Early Intervention for Adults with Potentially Disabling Conditions
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State vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies provide important employment services for people with disabilities. Yet little is known about the characteristics of individuals who have received VR services compared to the general population of people with disabilities. Using 2007 data, we found that 1.3 of every 100 working-age adults with a disability received services from a VR agency, with some states’ rates ranging from 0.6 percent in Washington and Puerto Rico to 4.0 percent in Vermont. We also found large differences in some states across demographic, educational, and disability subgroups. Further research could answer questions about why some groups are more likely to use VR services than others and whether VR agencies should target more resources to certain groups.
Journal Article
The latest reports from Mathematica's evaluation of the Ticket to Work (TTW) program, a major initiative of the Social Security Administration to increase disability beneficiaries' employment and reduce their dependence on benefits, highlight participation, beneficiary expectations, and methodology. Read more.
When workers with disabilities “buy into” Medicaid by paying monthly premiums, states can offer them Medicaid coverage when their income and assets would otherwise make them ineligible. Using MAX data and Medicare claims files, this report provides the most comprehensive information to date on patterns of Medicaid and Medicare spending and service use among Medicaid Buy-In participants. Researchers found that combined inflation-adjusted Medicaid and Medicare expenditures for Buy-In participants more than doubled from $887 million to $1.9 billion between 2002 and 2005, as did program enrollment. However, they also found that, when compared with other working-age disabled Medicaid enrollees, Buy-In participants in 2005 incurred lower annual Medicaid expenditures. This difference suggests that Buy-In participants who are working may require fewer services or a less expensive mix of services than other adult disabled Medicaid enrollees. Full Report Executive Summary
A new report reviews recent evaluation activities being conducted for 27 state and federal programs, policies, and initiatives designed to promote the employment of people with disabilities. The review provides information on the nature of the initiatives and evaluation efforts that have been recently completed or are currently under way, as well as findings to date related to effectiveness.
Youth who receive benefits from the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, the largest federal program providing cash payments to low-income youth with severe disabilities and their families, face notable challenges transitioning to adulthood. Six articles in the September issue of the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, by researchers from Mathematica, TransCen Inc., and the Social Security Administration, explore the nature of these challenges and related policy responses.
In the mid-1990s, the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital implemented Project SEARCH, a school-to-work program for developmentally and physically disabled high school students transitioning to employment. This approach requires successful collaboration between a sponsoring employer, a school system, a community rehabilitation provider, and the state vocational rehabilitation agency and/or the state or local developmental disabilities agency. Project SEARCH is unique in its total immersion of students in the workplace. Each Project SEARCH site generally enrolls 10 to 12 students per year, who spend the entire school day at the workplace. During the second month, students progress to the first of three individualized worksite rotations or internships that simulate real-world employment lasting 10 weeks. The student is often placed in one of the departments in the organization where he or she served as an intern. While this school-to-work model has been implemented in 140 additional sites in the United States and the United Kingdom, a national evaluation has not been conducted. A cost/benefit analysis should be implemented to determine if the high costs of the program—$233,280 per site which serves approximately 10 to 12 students per year—merit its implementation on a wider level. *Issue Brief
This brief discusses the characteristics of working-age individuals receiving Social Security disability benefits with work goals and describes their employment success. The findings suggest that beneficiaries fall into three broad groups based on their work-related efforts and expectations. For 60 percent, gainful employment seems to be neither a plan nor an option. Of the 40 percent who are interested in working, about half are actively pursuing and achieving this goal. *Issue Brief
The Demonstration to Maintain Independence and Employment (DMIE) awards funds to states to develop, implement, and evaluate interventions for workers with potentially disabling conditions. This brief describes DMIE interventions in Hawaii, Kansas, Minnesota, and Texas, and discusses what they might tell us about designing policy initiatives for workers with potentially disabling conditions in the context of national health care reform. *Issue brief
The Money Follows the Person (MFP) demonstration is the most ambitious program to date aimed at helping Medicaid enrollees transition from long-term care institutions to the community. This report, the third in a series presenting findings from Mathematica’s evaluation of the MFP program, describes states’ early implementation experiences and state transition activity as of December 2008.
*Report from the Field #3
Leading health care financing reforms might mitigate, or even eliminate, challenges that the current system creates for people with disabilities who work, or want to work, but there is no guarantee. This brief summarizes the challenges posed by the current system and considers how features of leading reform proposals would, or would not, address these challenges.
*Issue Brief
This brief explores the paths of people with disabilities who leave the Medicaid Buy-In program, finding that their earnings and employment rates decline after disenrollment. The program helps adults with disabilities work while still retaining Medicaid coverage. At the end of 2008, 37 states reported covering 92,446 people in the program.
*Issue Brief
Although Social Security disability benefits can provide critical income support as well as job assistance and access to medical services for individuals who are homeless, the benefit application process can be challenging. A new 
Forum 9: Staying Employed: Early Intervention for Adults with Potentially Disabling Conditions