Washington, DC Update 6/21/23

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Takes Action to Keep People Covered as States Resume Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program Renewals

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced new flexibilities to help keep Americans covered as states resume Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) renewals. The new flexibilities were announced in a letter Secretary Becerra sent to the nation’s governors urging them to adopt all available flexibilities to minimize avoidable coverage losses among children and families. Building on flexibilities HHS offered to states well before renewals resumed, some of the new flexibilities announced today include:

• Allowing managed care plans to assist people with Medicaid with completing their renewal forms, including completing certain parts of the renewal forms on their behalf.
• Allowing states to delay an administrative termination for one month while the state conducts additional targeted outreach. This will give people more time to be reminded to fill out and return their renewal forms.
• Allowing pharmacies and community-based organizations to facilitate reinstatement of coverage for those who were recently disenrolled for procedural reasons based on presumptive eligibility criteria.

A full list of all available flexibilities HHS is offering states is here.

States have varied in the number and type of flexibilities they have adopted to date. A link to the waiver approvals is here.

In his letter to the nation’s governors, Secretary Becerra also expressed particular concern that children who are still eligible for Medicaid or CHIP might lose coverage. He urged states to work with (see below links to “All Hands on Deck”) local governments, community-based organizations, schools, faith-based organizations and leaders, grocery stores, pharmacies, and anyone else in your communities who can help people understand the Medicaid and CHIP eligibility and renewal process – citing one school district that has started sending information home with students and holding community outreach events.

An “All Hands On Deck” fact sheet is here and “All Hands on Deck” partner call-to-action is here.

NOTE: The Georgetown Center for Children and Families Say Ahhh! Blog Unwinding Wednesday blog includes all of the above with links and more… for example: CMS promoted its 6-, 15-, and 30-second You Tube videos with the message “Don’t Wait! Update! Get Ready to Renew Your Medicaid or CHIP Coverage.” While these videos cannot be used for PSAs (not sure why), they are available for other public uses. Links to the videos can be found here.

You can find the most recent letter to governors detailed above and previous communications, guidance and resources from Medicaid.gov here.

CMS: Newly Released Data Briefs Detail Medicaid/CHIP Enrollee Demographic Characteristics

CMS released a series of data briefs detailing various demographic characteristics of Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollees for the first time. The four data briefs focus on the race and ethnicity, rural residency, primary language, and disability-related eligibility of the national Medicaid and CHIP populations. Collectively, the Medicaid and CHIP programs provide essential coverage to one in five Americans, including low-income adults, children, and people with disabilities, and the release of these data briefs is a major step toward sharing public data on some of the nation’s largest and most important health coverage programs and the people they serve.

NHELP: Constitutionality of Demographic Data Collection

Robust data collection by federal agencies and their contractors is a vital – and constitutionally permissible – measure to ensure that those programs fully comply with federal antidiscrimination laws. NHeLP strongly supports the comprehensive collection of demographic data in all public programs, surveys, and federal activities. This data should include race, ethnicity, preferred language (spoken and written), age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity. This issue brief seeks to dispel certain misconceptions about the constitutionality of data collection and the use of demographic data for purposes of compliance.

Georgetown Center for Children and Families (CCF) 50-state report: Mental Health of Infant and Toddlers

ZERO TO THREE shows,10-16% of young children experience mental health conditions, including PTSD and anxiety. For low-income infants, the rate is above 20%. Where do states stand on working to prevent, mitigate, or address mental health problems for the youngest children through services and supports? This Georgetown CCF new report, Medicaid Policies to Help Young Children Access Key Infant-Early Childhood Mental Health Services: Results from a 50-state Survey, aims to answer this question.

Georgetown CCF: Transparency in Medicaid Proposed Rules

Transparency has long been underrated as a way of improving access to care in Medicaid. This may be about to change. Two proposed rules that CMS published on May 3 use transparency—making information about program performance publicly available—as a policy lever to strengthen access in both fee-for-service (FFS) and managed care Medicaid. While these two proposed rules can and should go further, they increase accountability of state Medicaid agencies and managed care organizations (MCOs) for the accessibility of covered services for Medicaid beneficiaries. Check out this blog for more info!