We're back! Now that midterm elections are behind us, lawmakers are focusing their efforts on passing measures in time to avoid a government shutdown during the lame-duck session. Before we take another quick break next week for Thanksgiving recess, check out what's been on our radar below. We'll be back in your inbox on Friday, November 30th!
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The Latest from the Administration & Congress
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Medicaid Expansion After the Midterms
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Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah voted to expand Medicaid in the recent midterm elections on November 6th. States have the option to expand their Medicaid program to include anyone with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty line under the Affordable Care Act. This will give roughly 300,000 people in Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah access to Medicaid who were previously ineligible for the program.
Gubernatorial elections in Kansas, Maine, and Wisconsin also should increase the chances for Medicaid expansion via legislation in those states.
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Systems Delivery for Individuals with Mental Illnesses
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On Tuesday, in a
State Medicaid Director letter
, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced opportunities to design service delivery systems for providing community-based services for adults with a serious mental illness (SMI) or children with a serious emotional disturbance (SED).
Part I of the announcement details existing strategies for delivering services to individuals with SMI or SED, such as integration of mental health care and primary care, and better care coordination and transitions to community-based care. Part II of the announcement is the 1115 waiver opportunity for states to implement policy experiments to create better delivery systems for individuals with SMI or SED.
Through this SMI/SED demonstration opportunity, states may receive federal matching funds for Medicaid-coverable services provided to individuals residing in psychiatric hospitals and residential treatment settings that are not ordinarily matchable because these facilities qualify as institutes of mental disease (IMD).
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The Maternal Opioid Misuse Model
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In October, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the Maternal Opioid Misuse (MOM) Model, an important step in advancing the agency’s multi-pronged strategy to combat the nation’s opioid crisis. The goal of the MOM model is to improve care for mothers with opioid use disorder and reduce cost burdens on Medicaid while expanding access to healthcare services.
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ACF Memorandum on Meaningful Father Engagement
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In October, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) issued a joint Information Memorandum (IM) emphasizing the importance of meaningful father engagement in all ACF programs to better serve children and families. The memorandum highlights research findings that demonstrate the value of father involvement in the lives of children and families, and identifies promising practices to promote and sustain meaningful father engagement, regardless of a father’s physical location or custodial participation.
The IM can be found on ACF’s website
here
.
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Open Call for Culture of Health Articles
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With continuing support from the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
,
Health Affairs
is planning four clusters of articles in 2019 and 2020 on topics
surrounding the
Culture of Health
. They are particularly interested in work that addresses the topics below and ties into one or more of the key action areas that form the Culture of Health framework, all of which support the overarching goal of improving population health, well-being, and equity:
Submissions are due
December 10, 2018
and
April 1, 2019
.
Click here
for more information.
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Prenatal-to-Age-Three State Grant Competition
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The Pritzker Children’s Initiative (PCI) has set a goal of expanding high-quality services nationally to at least one million more low-income families with children prenatal to age three by 2023. To achieve this goal, PCI is awarding five to ten Planning Grants ($100,000/grant) and three to five Action Grants (ranging from $1-3 million) to states.
In the first three years of a child’s life, the brain is developing faster than at any later period in life and this is why PCI is seeking proposals from across the country that can help put children on a path for success. Letters of Intent are due
January 15, 2019
. Proposals are due on
February 15, 2019
.
Click here
for more information.
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2019 State Healthcare IT Connect 10th Anniversary Summit
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The
2019 State Healthcare IT Connect Summit
will be held March 18-20, 2019 in Baltimore, MD. This event has grown and evolved into an important national venue for public and private sector thought leaders to share ideas and benchmark implementation strategies of Health IT Systems. States are coordinating major initiatives including data governance and interoperability, Medicaid modernization, payment reform, population health, and program integrity as well as data privacy, security, and compliance issues at many levels.
Early bird registration rates are available until
December 14, 2018
. Registration is
free for government employees.
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