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: [...]
MACPAC: Let’s “hit the pause button” on Medicaid Work Requirements
The non-partisan legislative branch agency that advises Congress and the administration on Medicaid issues will ask the administration to delay approving any more state Medicaid work requirements. That was the decision reached by the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access [...]
MACPAC Meets
The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission met for two days last week in Washington, D.C. The following is MACPAC’s own summary of the sessions. The October 2018 MACPAC meeting covered a range of front-line issues in Medicaid, leading [...]
HHS Seeks Feedback on Social Determinants of Health
Following up on a requirement from the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Transformation (IMPACT) Act of 2014, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued a request for information seeking feedback from providers and insurers about what they do to [...]
Medicaid Expansion Didn’t Hurt Access After All
The expansion of Medicaid in nearly two-thirds of the states has not affected access to care for Medicare participants in those states. According to a new analysis by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Medicare patients had no more trouble [...]
