Benefits & Services
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Top Five Ways ACA Repeal and Medicaid Financing Changes Would Harm our Youngest Children
Editor’s note: We at Say Ahhh! are getting a lot of traction around our “top 5s” on Medicaid cuts and the impact of ACA repeal and Medicaid financing changes on child welfare. So we thought we should continue the trend and focus on young children. We are grateful our colleagues at CLASP agreed to join…
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State Snapshots of Children’s Health Coverage
As Say Ahhh! readers well know, Medicaid and CHIP are a primary source of coverage for children, particularly the most vulnerable children. But even people who know the importance of our public coverage programs are often surprised to learn key statistics about Medicaid and CHIP. For example, did you know that: 57 percent of all…
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Kaiser Family Foundation & CCF Release 50-State Medicaid/CHIP Survey
Today, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families released their annual 50-state survey on Medicaid and CHIP eligibility, enrollment, renewal and cost-sharing policies. The survey is a “must read” report for anyone interested in health care policy and its impact on low-income children and families across the country. Tricia…
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Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility, Enrollment, Renewal, and Cost Sharing Policies: Findings from a 50-State Survey
This annual 50-state survey provides data on Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) eligibility, enrollment, renewal and cost sharing policies and identifies changes in these policies that occurred in the past year. This report documents the role Medicaid and CHIP play for low-income children and families and the evolution of these programs under the…
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Busting the “Falling under its Own Weight” Myth: New Analysis Shows Better Outlook for the Affordable Care Act Marketplaces
By Rachel Schwab, originally posted on CHIRblog It’s a new year, and with it comes new hope for the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) exchanges. Wall Street analysts recently released research that shows improvements in insurers’ finances for 2016, predicting even better margins for future years. But just as the markets are starting to stabilize, the…
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Rhode Island: Working to Improve Access to Oral Health Care for Children through RIte Smiles and TeethFirst!
By Katherine Chu and Jim Beasley, Rhode Island KIDS COUNT Oral health is a critical but overlooked component of overall health and well-being among children and adults. Poor oral health has immediate and significant negative impacts on children’s general health, school attendance and academic achievement. Untreated dental disease can lead to eating, sleeping, speaking and learning…
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Medicaid Expansion Helps Kids by Helping Moms Get Care for Maternal Depression
By Joan Alker and Olivia Golden Today, CLASP and the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families (CCF) are releasing a new report on the important but often-overlooked link between adult health care coverage and children’s healthy development – specifically, the connection between health care coverage and identifying and treating maternal depression, so that children…
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How the New Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Regulations Enhance the Beneficiary Experience
Thanks to a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CCF has teamed with NHeLP to launch a series of explainer briefs to unpack the new Medicaid/CHIP managed care regulations. Two briefs in the series have been released: Looking at the New Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Regulations Through a Children’s Lens and Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Rules: Improving Consumer…
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Medicaid/CHIP Managed Care Regulations: Enhancing the Beneficiary Experience
As managed care and particularly mandatory managed care programs have become the predominant model for delivering care in Medicaid, there has been a growing recognition of the need to provide potential enrollees with accurate and timely information about their managed care options, to enable and encourage an active choice of plans, and to ensure that…
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Using Data to Document and Improve EPSDT Participation
For the second part of our series on EPSDT, we’ll turn our attention to data. If you missed the first part, go back for a moment to catch up before continuing. CMS-416 The official federal data source for EPSDT is the CMS-416 form. States are required to use this form to report EPSDT data to…
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Embracing an Opportunity to Measure Value in Children’s Health Care
By Suzanne Brundage, originally posted on www.uhfnyc.org Most people in the child health community—and almost assuredly all readers of “Say Ahhh!”—are aware of the ways in which children’s health and their use of health care services differ from those of the adult population. Key differences include the prominence of prevention efforts in children’s health, the relatively…
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Fact Sheet: Medicaid’s Role for Children
Medicaid is an essential source of health coverage for the nation’s children. The program provides health coverage to children and parents in low-income families who lack access to affordable private health insurance, as well as to children with special health care needs.
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How Is Florida’s Medicaid Managed Care Working for Children?
How is Florida’s Medicaid managed care working for children? To answer this question, we looked at existing data sources and also conducted a survey of pediatricians in Florida. Our results suggest there is considerable room for improvement in Medicaid managed care for Florida’s children.
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Indiana Study Documents Unmet Need for Transportation to Care
By Marsha Simon, PhD. Even with the federal government’s official evaluation forthcoming, Indiana’s evaluation of its waiver to drop non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) benefits is telling. The evaluation found a significant number of individuals on Medicaid are missing appointments because they lack transportation. According to survey results, 6 percent of Medicaid recipients under the waiver…
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Video Highlights of Hearing on “Flint Water Crisis: Impacts and Lessons Learned”
On Wednesday, April 13, Georgetown CCF’s Executive Director Joan Alker testified before the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee on lessons emerging from the Flint water crisis. Here are the highlights of the hearing. Joan Alker explains the vital role of Medicaid in ameliorating harm in times of crisis… and how Medicaid can help meet…
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New Tools Raise Awareness about Developmental Screenings in Pennsylvania
By Joan Benso, President and CEO, Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children In the past year, Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children (PPC) has collaborated with professionals from across the commonwealth to understand the state of developmental screening. PPC’s overarching organizational mission is to make Pennsylvania one of the top 10 states to be a child and to raise…
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EPSDT: A Primer on Medicaid’s Pediatric Benefit
Children enrolled in Medicaid are entitled to a comprehensive array of preventive and ameliorative care through the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) benefit. Beyond the indecipherable acronym, EPSDT is a critically important benefit that is broadly recognized as the definitive standard for children. We’ve broken down the acronym in this fact sheet,…
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Seven Steps for Children’s Advocates Reviewing Essential Health Benefit Benchmarks
HHS recently posted the proposed 2017 Essential Health Benefit (EHB) benchmark benefit plans (BBP) and supporting documents for the 50 states and DC. Though the 30-day public comment period is short, it provides an important opportunity for state advocates and stakeholders to review their state’s EHB BBP and raise any concerns before final federal approval.…
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States Need to Select Essential Health Benefit Benchmark Plans for 2017 Soon!
Did you know states need to select their Essential Health Benefits (EHB) benchmark plan for 2017 in just a few weeks? If not, you could be forgiven for missing this one. There’s plenty going on to capture your attention – the wait for the Supreme Court to weigh in on premium tax credits in federally…
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New Policy Brief Outlines Strategies to Improve Children’s Oral Health
By Colin Reusch, Children’s Dental Health Project Despite evidence that access to dental care in Medicaid and CHIP is on the rise, tooth decay remains the most common chronic condition among children. And while tooth decay is especially prevalent among children of low-income families, less than half of all children enrolled in Medicaid see a…
