Ambulances Respond Slower to Low-Income Communities
People living in low-income communities wait about four minutes longer for ambulances to respond to their call for help when they are having a heart attack, a new study has found. In communities with annual median incomes between $57,000 and [...]
CMS Introduces New Waivers
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has introduced four new “state relief and empowerment waivers” that are widely viewed as new vehicles for states to circumvent Affordable Care Act requirements to implement their own new approaches to health care. [...]
Number of Uninsured Children Rises
For the first time since 2008, the number of uninsured children in the U.S. increased in 2017, according to a new report from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. While the total increase in the number of uninsured children is [...]
Medicare Advantage to Address Social Determinants of Health
Beginning next year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will authorize Medicare Advantage plans to pay for some health-related but non-medical benefits for their members – benefits that will help address social determinants of health that affect the health [...]
Medicaid to Help Pay for Food, Heat, Rent?
Maybe. At least that is what Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar hinted during a recent symposium held in Salt Lake City. During the event, Azar said that HHS’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation seeks …solutions [...]
HHS Gives States New Options for Medicaid-Covered Behavioral Health Treatment
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has informed state Medicaid programs that it is giving them new opportunities to pay for hospitalization to care for recipients with behavioral health problems. For years Medicaid has greatly limited the ability [...]
Medicaid Birthing Model Improves Outcomes
A federal program to improve birth outcomes among Medicaid-covered women has produced positive results: lower rates of pre-term births, fewer low birthweight babies, fewer C-sections, lower delivery costs, and lower first-year health care spending. The “Strong Start for Mothers and [...]
CMS Proposes New Medicaid Managed Care Regulation
Just two years after a major overhaul of Medicaid managed care regulations, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is again proposing changes in how the federal government regulates the delivery of managed care services to Medicaid beneficiaries. Under the [...]
Election Brings Good News for Medicaid
Medicaid came out on top in elections throughout the country last week. With the arrival of a Democratic majority in the House, attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, including its Medicaid expansion, appear to have come to an end [...]
The Changing of the Congressional Health Care Guard
Last week’s elections will bring to office in January a new majority party in the House and changes in the Senate as well. Changes in leadership are coming in all of the House committees with jurisdiction over health care matters: [...]
