Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: Rationale: Continuous Enrolment is a "must requirement" for the analyses based on claims data since failure to control for different variable length creates a bias in our estimators. This requirement, however, may decrease the sample sizes substantially. Relaxing of continous enrolment requirement and the appropriate adjustment to the models are necessary.
Objective: We proposed a two stage estimation method which can be used to estimate our outcomes consistently without imposing continous enrolment requirement.
Method: We provide systematic treatment of the correction for possible selection bias of any claims data where the selection rule is described by a censored regression model. We first use the duration of time a patient is tracked for selection. Second using Tobit residuals in the structural equation, we showed that we removed possible selection bias due to continuos enrolment requirement. We used every patient in our first stage estimation, continously enrolled and not continously enrolled and used this infromation to estimate our second stage model over continously enrolled patients. We also derive a simple test to determine possible selection bias due to continous enrolment requierment.
Results: We proved that the resulting estimators are consistent and asymptotically normal. Simulation studies are comfirmed our results.
Conclusion: Continous enrolment requirement can be very restrictive in certian cases, and failure to adjust for information from droped out patients may lead to bias. Adjustment is required to control for possible selection bias.

Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: Title: The Effects of Medicaid Enrollment Procedures on the Insurance Coverage of Children

Rationale: In the 1990s states began to change the administrative procedures associated with applying for Medicaid, first easing procedural requirements and subsequently tightening them. While states have held eligibility levels constant in the face of recent budget shortfalls, the same is not true for administrative procedures; eleven states have tightened the enrollment requirements for Medicaid applicants since 2001. Theory predicts that parents with varying preferences regarding insurance coverage and different costs of enrolling will differentially respond to changes in enrollment procedures. Further, parents with lower education levels face more difficulties in navigating Medicaid’s procedural requirements than their peers with higher education levels, suggesting that the insurance take-up of children in families with parents with low education levels is disproportionately affected by enrollment procedures.

Objective: This work will analyze the effects of administrative procedures on the insurance coverage of Medicaid-eligible children. Also, it will test for differential effects between children in families with lower education levels versus those in families with relatively higher education levels.

Data and Methods: The dependent variable of interest is insurance status: whether a child is publicly insured, privately insured, or uninsured. The 2001-2005 rounds of the Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey (corresponding to the years 2000-2004) will be used for the analysis. The primary independent variable of interest is an index of Medicaid enrollment requirements comprised of: the presence of presumptive eligibility (coverage is provided immediately upon application receipt instead of after the verification and processing of the application); the requirement of an asset test; adoption of a 12 month versus a 6 month renewal period; the requirement of a face-to-face interview at application (in contrast to a mail-in application); and the requirement of applicant income verification (in contrast to the sufficiency of self-reported income). The other major independent variable of interest is maternal education, which is also available in the Current Population Survey.

Regression models for categorical data will be estimated for the main effects of enrollment procedures and maternal education on children’s insurance status as well as the interaction of these two independent variables. Covariates will include: age, sex, race, household income, health status, household composition, urban/rural residence, the state unemployment rate, and parental employment characteristics. We will consider models with both fixed and random effects in order to account for time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity among states that may influence both enrollment procedures and insurance coverage.

Conclusions: States have been actively changing Medicaid enrollment procedures throughout the past decade. Very little research has been done on the effects of these policy changes on children’s insurance coverage. This study’s aim is to provide evidence on the effects that enrollment policies have on the insurance coverage of Medicaid-eligible children and if they exert differential effects on children in families with low levels of maternal education.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Often two areas of study proceed along similar paths without intersecting. In cases like these, neither benefits from the unique approach nor the subsequent findings of the other. While studies in enrollment management have shown that teacher/student relationship is one factor that can positively affect retention especially in the case of minority students, very little of that research has explored how to accomplish this sense of relating via communication. On the other hand, human communication researchers have studied many aspects of teacher immediacy in intercultural contexts without exploring its application to retention. Given the understanding that both of these areas of study have been rightfully focused on their own objectives, it is expected that a fusion of the two could have sustained positive effects on keeping students in school. The goal of this paper is to connect these two areas of research as a foundation for first understanding the role of teacher communication in retention and in making subsequent research-based proposals for maximizing the potential of teachers as key players in the enrollment management funnel.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This presentation will focus on the challenges Boston College has faced in their attempt to increase demand for new less-commonly taught language courses in Portuguese and Arabic.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: District enrollment data from one Intermountain West school district is analyzed to determine which students participate in open enrollment, which demographic and school factors influence their propensity to choose, and how the schools parents choose differ from the schools their children are zoned to attend. We examine differences in background, including race, educational attainment, and socioeconomic status, as well as characteristics of the students’ zoned schools compared with the schools they select during open enrollment. We find that open enrollment, like other forms of school choice, tends to “cream” advantaged students. Nevertheless, our sample yields a large number of disadvantaged students who exercise choice. We find differences in the propensity to exercise school choice between advantaged and disadvantaged students. We also find vast differences in the kinds of schools they choose. The results from our analyses suggest that advantaged and disadvantaged parents make similar types of choices; however, they exercise school choice within very different contexts. While both groups are likely to choose more affluent schools with better academic records than the schools they are zoned to attend, advantaged parents choose among the most affluent schools with the best academic records in the district. Disadvantaged parents choose way from the least affluent schools with the worst academic records to schools that are slightly better.