HMA Community Strategies conducted an assessment of unmet mental health needs of people living with HIV in Los Angeles County. The study aimed to understand behavioral health service utilization and the role that facility staff and institutional structures play in charting the trajectory of clients. The assessment includes the breadth of experiences and perspectives represented by each facet of the delivery system to inform stakeholders and funders of the best approach for future success.
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The 22nd annual Medicaid budget survey released: pandemic continues to shape priorities
The 22nd annual Medicaid Budget Survey conducted by The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and Health Management Associates (HMA) was released on October 25, 2022, in the report: How the Pandemic Continues to Shape Medicaid Priorities: Results from an Annual Medicaid Budget Survey for State Fiscal Years 2022 and 2023.
The report was prepared by Kathleen Gifford, Aimee Lashbrook, and Matt Wimmer from HMA; Mike Nardone; and by Elizabeth Hinton, Madeline Guth, Jada Raphael, Sweta Haldar, and Robin Rudowitz from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The survey was conducted in collaboration with the National Association of Medicaid Directors (NAMD).
System integration across child welfare, behavioral health, and Medicaid
Children and families involved in the behavioral health and child welfare systems are often the most vulnerable and in need of intensive supports. Fragmented systems of care across child welfare, behavioral health, and Medicaid often cause families “to fall through the cracks,” leading to increased use of high-cost services that separate families and results in poorer outcomes. These siloed approaches perpetuate and exacerbate trauma to children and families. In the second in a series of briefs focused on enhancing the youth behavioral health system, the HMA team of Uma Ahluwalia, Caitlin Thomas-Henkel, Roxanne Kennedy, and Courtney Thompson propose four core design elements – and related KPIs – for establishing a high-functioning integrated system of care for children, youth, and their families, child welfare, Medicaid, and behavioral health systems.
HMA consultants author Well Being Trust brief, “Naloxone for Overdose Reversal: Challenges and Opportunities”
Efforts to reduce America’s opioid-related overdose deaths are being hampered by glaring inconsistencies in U.S. policies and practices from one region, health system, and community to another. So states a new Well Being Trust brief, “Naloxone for Overdose Reversal: Challenges and Opportunities,” written by HMA consultants Barry Jacobs and Helena Whitney, released September 15, 2022. The 10-page, intensively researched report also makes four policy recommendations calling for easier access to naloxone for providers and consumers, as well as more consistent naloxone prescribing and community distribution practices throughout the country.
Bolstering the youth behavioral health system: innovative state policies to address access & parity
With 1 in 5 children experiencing a mental health condition every year and only 54 percent of non-institutionalized youth enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP receiving mental health treatment, the HMA team of Caitlin Thomas-Henkel, Uma Ahluwalia, Devon Schechinger and Debbi Witham have authored the first in a series of briefs focused on enhancing the youth behavioral health system. This brief, Bolstering the Youth Behavioral Health System: Innovative State Policies to Address Access & Parity, explores state policy levers to advance access and availability of behavioral health services (encompassing mental health and substance use disorders) for youth.
HMA series of issue briefs outline Medicare savings proposals
In a series of issue briefs outlining Medicare savings proposals, Jennifer Podulka examines federal budget pressures and impending insolvency of the Medicare Trust Fund that will require Congress to choose between reducing provider or Medicare Advantage plan payments, increasing dedicated income, modifying beneficiary cost sharing, or some combination of these options.
Successful Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Center models, temporary regulatory flexibilities implemented in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency, and other recent Medicare policy changes inform new savings options for policymakers to consider.
The issue briefs were prepared for Arnold Ventures and will be used to drive discussion and planning. Five novel Medicare savings proposals include:
Medicare Coverage of Drugs That Receive FDA Accelerated Approval
Ensure that Medicare Beneficiaries have Access to the Successful Diabetes Prevention Program
Options for Adjusting Medicare Advantage Benchmarks and Quality Bonuses to Achieve Program Savings
Addressing Medicare Trust Fund Solvency
Edrington Health Consulting, an HMA company authors “Investing in Primary Care: Why it Matters for Californians with Medi-Cal Coverage”
California Health Care Foundation released a new study authored by the Edrington Health Consulting, an HMA company, Investing in Primary Care: Why it Matters for Californians with Medi-Cal Coverage, that highlights the critical role primary care plays for patients in Medi-Cal. The study encompasses 5.4 million Californians enrolled in Medi-Cal managed care, or nearly half of all Medi-Cal enrollees in 2019, and finds greater investment in primary care is generally associated with better quality of care, patient experience, and plan rating. Furthermore, the study provides an important baseline for understanding how greater investment in primary care can improve quality and equity; this is particularly important as California expands Medi-Cal to include all income-eligible Californians, regardless of immigration status. This analysis comes as California is taking significant steps toward ensuring primary care teams, including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, community health workers, behavioral health staff and others play a greater role in the health care delivery system.
HMA and National Council for Mental Wellbeing release issue brief on diversity in the behavioral health workforce
The third issue brief, in a series by HMA and National Council colleagues that examines the workforce crisis facing the country’s behavioral health system, highlights the access and service delivery challenges presented and exacerbated by health disparities and inequities.
The brief focuses on the need to recruit, train, and retain a diverse workforce in order to reduce behavioral health disparities and engage populations with historic and structural disparities, in order to build trust with providers and in the overall healthcare system.
Outlining challenges and actionable solutions, the brief points to the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) model as an opportunity for states and provider organizations to partner and address health disparities and social determinates of health for underserved and marginalized populations.
Additional briefs in this series are Behavioral Health Workforce is a National Crisis: Immediate Policy Actions for States and Immediate Policy Actions to Address the National Workforce Shortage and Improve Care
The following HMA colleagues contributed to this series: Uma Ahluwalia, Heidi Arthur, Angela Bergefurd, Cammie Cantrell, Nora Carreras, Suzanne Daub, Gina Eckart, Gina Lasky, Juliet Marsala, Emma Martino, Sandra Oxley, Deb Peartree, Erica Reaves, and Doris Tolliver.
Learning from COVID-19-related flexibilities: moving toward more person-centered Medicare and Medicaid programs
A new person-centered assessment framework and issue brief, authored by HMA experts in conjunction with Manatt Health, examine the temporary regulatory Medicare and Medicaid flexibilities implemented during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) and aimed at ensuring access to care for older adults and people with chronic conditions and disabilities.
As these temporary flexibilities are currently set to expire in April 2022, the report provides insight and guidance for policymakers as they assess the impact these regulatory policy changes are having on advancing person- and community-centered care and consider possible permanence of these changes.
The framework is designed to help facilitate these conversations and decisions and assess the potential for continuation of the regulatory flexibilities to advance person- and community-centered care, facilitate access to care in the least intensive or least restrictive setting, and better align Medicare and Medicaid program rules.
HMA colleagues Jennifer Podulka, Yamini Narayan, and Keyan Javadi contributed to the framework and research.
Issue brief examines greater flexibility for primary care models
An issue brief released today outlines new Medicare payment models that offer greater flexibility and aim to shift more care to primary care models, moves that can improve quality and reduce costs. HMA authors, Jennifer Podulka, Yamini Narayan, and Lynea Holmes found the two newest primary care payment models, Global and Professional Direct Contracting (which will be re-branded as Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health (ACO REACH) beginning January 1, 2023) and Primary Care First offer more flexibility than previously released approaches and represent a promising step forward for primary care.
The report, Increasing Medicare’s Investment in Primary Care, also notes that to increase the likelihood that models achieve overall cost savings and/or quality improvement, one option for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation is to test approaches that place greater value on primary care and give primary care providers greater flexibility to tailor care for people outside of a fee-for-service system. These changes could improve people’s access to care, the quality of care received, and quality of life.
HMA, Milbank brief examines nursing facility care
Residents in nursing facilities faced higher infection rates and worse overall care experiences during the COVID-19 public health emergency highlighting long-standing concerns about the quality and cost-effectiveness of nursing facility care, especially for residents of color.
In a recent issue brief published by the Milbank Memorial Fund that HMA COO Chuck Milligan co-authored with Kate McEvoy, a program officer with Milbank, examined disparities in access, levels of care, and resident outcomes, and provided recommendations and guidance for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on future approach to federal policy in nursing facilities.
The brief, A Call for Federal Action to Improve Nursing Facilities, suggests CMS take the following steps to improve nursing facility oversight and care:
- Endorse linkage of any further public health emergency-related funding or other federal financial reimbursement to quality improvement.
- Align Medicare and Medicaid efforts to promote payment policies that are based on risk adjustment for complex care and incorporate value-based payment principles, eliminate unintended consequences of federal policies such as routine approval of nursing home bed taxes, and adopt a common foundation of quality measures.
- Expand existing guidance on rebalancing long-term services and supports.
- Enhance conditions of participation for nursing homes and hospitals by including structural measures such as census and staff turnover.
- Build out existing mechanisms like Care Compare to enhance public transparency, availability, and usability of cost report and ownership information and to provide timely and complete information on nursing facility citations.
Issue brief proposes local option for uninsured
Examining the more than 3 million non-elderly poor adults in states without Medicaid expansion, the HMA team of Matt Powers and former HMA colleagues Nora Leibowitz and Jack Meyer, have authored an issue brief proposing a local health insurance option to fill gaps for these individuals who frequently lack access to meaningful healthcare.
The brief, Considerations for a Local Health Insurance Option in Medicaid Non-expansion States, published by the Milbank Memorial Fund, recognizes the critical role local entities and providers play in providing care and proposes a Local Choice Option, could:
- Provide a comprehensive insurance product that promotes appropriate access to healthcare and better health outcomes
- Repurpose funding now used only for direct care to provide healthcare more efficiently
- Support local customization and create an alternative to an open-ended entitlement program in states where that is not currently politically tenable
The brief concludes a Local Choice Option would be a sound investment with the potential for quick implementation and benefits of health insurance not currently available to people living in poverty in non-expansion states.