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Medicaid and CHIP Outreach Snapshot Blog Series
Earlier this year, CCF published a snapshot of state Medicaid and CHIP outreach activities. The report provides an analysis of state-provided outreach resources and enrollment assistance. This blog series highlights good examples of state outreach and enrollment efforts and identifies areas that need improvement. Read the snapshot report Read the introductory blog Read the blog on social media…
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Language Supports Are an Area for Improvement for Medicaid and CHIP Agency Websites
This installment of our series about our outreach snapshot tackles the most challenging aspect of our research assessing the availability of language and accessibility supports on state websites. The wide variation and often confusing steps to access language assistance tools made capturing this section of the snapshot particularly difficult. We’ll dive in further here to…
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What Data Do We Have on the 988 Mental Health Crisis Call Line?
We wrote about the 988 crisis line on Say Ahhh! shortly after its launch in 2022. Two years into implementation, we’d like to revisit the crisis line to see where things stand. As a refresher, 988 was designated as the new number for the national mental health crisis hotline, replacing the previous 10-digit number, by…
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How States Can Use Tax and Unemployment Filings to Sign People Up for Health Insurance
This spring, as millions of people prepared their taxes, an increasing number of states were using the tax-filing process to connect those who are eligible but uninsured with comprehensive, affordable health insurance. These “easy-enrollment programs” allow filers to check a box on forms they file with the state (e.g., income tax returns) to indicate that they…
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CMS Proposes Rule to Codify 12-Month Continuous Eligibility and Improvements to Maternal Health
CMS released a proposed rule related to Medicare hospital outpatient and ambulatory surgical center payments that also includes provisions codifying the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 (CAA) requirement that states provide 12-months of continuous eligibility to all children in Medicaid and CHIP under age 19 as of January 1, 2024. While most of the rule…
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Improving Access in Medicaid Managed Care Using State Directed Payments
The Centers for Medicare & medicaid Services (CMS) recently released new Medicaid managed care regulations that update CMS policy on State Directed Payments (SDP). In this blog we’ll cover what SDPs are, how they can be used to improve access to care, and some changes in how CMS will allow and regulate them. You can…
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CMS Expresses Concern over States with Large Shares of Application Backlogs
Much has been written about the enormous task state agencies have faced as they returned to routine operations during the unwinding of the Medicaid continuous enrollment requirement. While the primary focus (rightfully) has been around renewals and the renewal process, states have other eligibility and enrollment operational responsibilities including processing applications for new applicants or…
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Florida’s Governor Spends Taxpayer Money on Lawyers to Further Delay Covering Children
On June 22, 2023 Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB121 a bill that expanded eligibility to cover children through the state’s KidCare program (the state’s version of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)) to 300 percent of the poverty line. The bill unanimously passed both chambers of the Republican-controlled Florida legislature. The state of Florida has…
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States are Harnessing the Benefits of Video to Boost Outreach and Enrollment
Have you ever watched an instructional video about how to cut an avocado? Or how to change a car tire? Even short, explanatory videos about some of the simplest tasks can garner thousands of views from individuals looking to learn a new skill. The complexities of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are…
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District Court Strikes Down Approvals of Harmful Waivers in Indiana (and Shows the Supreme Court is Wrong About Many Things)
After a week full of partisan and poorly-reasoned Supreme Court decisions, it was a relief to see that at least one federal court continues to do its job faithfully. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued yet another stellar section 1115 demonstration decision, in a case called Rose v. Becerra, vacating the…
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Medicaid Managed Care Quality Strategy and Quality Rating System
The Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Managed Care Access, Finance, and Quality final rule makes significant improvements to managed care quality requirements, including boosting transparency and reducing reporting lag times. When fully enacted, these changes will transition states from reporting a single overall quality rating for a managed care plan to rating all…
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Protected: CCF Annual Child Health Policy Conference 2024
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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CBO Issues New Baseline Estimates on Child Enrollment Impact of Medicaid Unwinding
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently issued its June 2024 Medicaid baseline. According to CBO, total average monthly Medicaid enrollment (including both those receiving full benefits and those receiving partial benefits) is expected to fall by 18 million — or 18.6 percent — between federal fiscal years 2023 and 2025. Children’s enrollment in Medicaid is…
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Supreme Court (Yet Again) Destroys Long-standing Precedent in Another Power Grab: This Time Federal Agencies Greatly Weakened
A power-hungry Supreme Court continues its steady drift away from established legal doctrine and long-standing precedent, acting instead based on political motives and expedience, to the detriment of the country. Today in a 6-3 party-line decision, in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court pulled yet another 180-degree turn on long-standing precedent, overturning what is…
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CMS Awards 18 States Up to $2.5 Million Each to Advance Medicaid and CHIP School-Based Services
This week, on the two-year anniversary of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it is awarding grants to 18 states for implementation, enhancement, and expansion of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) school-based health services. As previously discussed on Say Ahhh!, the 2022 Bipartisan Safer…
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Four years of RAPID Survey Project Highlights Young Families’ Biggest Stressors: Child Care, Housing, Health Care
Last month, Stanford Center on Early Childhood released its four-year anniversary report on findings of its RAPID Survey Project. The report detailed the top concerns and stressors felt by parents and providers of young children across the country. The leading concerns? Child care, housing, and health care. The RAPID Survey Project began in response to…
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Transparency in Medicaid Managed Care: The MCPAR Saga Continues
Three years ago, the Center for Medicaid & CHIP Services (CMCS) issued an CMCS Informational Bulletin (CIB) on “Medicaid and CHIP Managed Care Monitoring and Oversight Tools.” The CIB triggered a 2016 regulatory requirement that states contracting with managed care organizations (MCOs) submit to CMCS a Managed Care Program Annual Report (MCPAR). The MCPAR contains…
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The Unwinding: It’s Not Over Until It’s Over
Recently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) put out a list of the estimated month in which states will finish processing renewals for individuals who were covered when the pandemic-era Medicaid continuous enrollment requirement was lifted and had not been renewed in the past year. While originally it was expected that all states…
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2024 Survey of Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility, Enrollment, and Renewal Policies Shows Gains in Child and Maternal Health Coverage
Highlights of the 2024 Survey of Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility, Enrollment, and Renewal Policies, conducted by KFF and Georgetown CCF, were presented in a webinar today featuring federal and state officials from North Carolina and Ohio. This marks the 22nd annual report on state policies for eligibility, enrollment, and renewal processes, which this year includes…
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Back to Basics: Effective State Medicaid and CHIP Outreach to Families Doesn’t Need to be Complicated
In this series, we’ve been diving deeper into our outreach snapshot to look at more state-based examples that we find compelling. Though they may seem disparate, this installment covers some of the most quintessential outreach activities included in the research. First up: videos focused on outreach to individuals and families, such as who is eligible…
