Medicaid and home and community-based services

Looming Medicaid Challenges

State Medicaid programs are facing significant financial challenges in the coming years. Among them: less federal Medicaid matching money, a continued call by providers for increased payments, and a growing demand to use Medicaid to help address behavioral health challenges. In addition, proponents of investing more Medicaid money in home- and community-based services can be expected to ask state Medicaid programs to cover more services while those programs face a growing demand to use Medicaid resources to address social determinants of health such as poor housing and hunger. At the same time, large numbers of individuals continue to fall off [...]

joe2024-02-13T19:59:13+00:00February 15, 2024|Medicaid, Medicaid and homelessness, Medicaid and housing, social determinants of health|

MACPAC Meets

The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission met for two days recently in Washington, D.C. The following is MACPAC’s own summary of the meeting. To kick off MACPAC’s November meeting, the Commission continued its work on denials and appeals in Medicaid managed care with a review of findings from beneficiary focus groups. Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs) manage and provide care to beneficiaries enrolled in their plans. Beneficiaries have the right to appeal MCO coverage decisions. Federal rules require that states have monitoring systems in place to provide oversight of MCOs and their appeals systems. This session described key challenges [...]

admin2023-11-14T06:00:32+00:00November 14, 2023|Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Congress, health equity, hospitals, MACPAC, Medicaid, Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, Medicaid long-term services and supports, Medicaid managed care, Medicaid regulations, Medicaid regulations for long-term care|

Federal Health Policy Update for Friday, May 14

The following is the latest health policy news from the federal government as of 2:30 p.m. on Friday, May 14. Some of the language used below is taken directly from government documents. The CDC and Mask Guidance The CDC has updated its guidance on when people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 do and do not need to wear masks and when they do and do not need to seek testing when they believe they have been exposed to someone with the virus. This is the guidance that was released amid a great deal of public attention on Thursday. The [...]

admin2021-05-14T16:26:03+00:00May 14, 2021|Coronavirus, COVID-19, Medicaid, Medicare|

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. MACPAC kicked off its April meeting with a review of a draft chapter for the June 2021 report to Congress and recommendations on addressing high-cost specialty drugs. Since 2017, the Commission has been working to identify potential models that could help states address the challenges of high prices. The presentation focused on drugs that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the accelerated approval pathway. Such approvals are based [...]

admin2021-04-14T06:00:46+00:00April 14, 2021|MACPAC, Medicaid, Medicaid regulations|