Medicaid Expansions

Reducing readmissions is a national priority for payers, providers, and policymakers seeking to improve health care and lower costs, and readmissions are a significant issue among patients with Medicaid. This guide from AHRQ is designed to help acute care facilities adapt or expand existing Medicaid readmission reduction efforts; develop Medicaid readmission reduction strategies using the guide’s roadmap featuring 13 customizable online tools; comply with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Conditions of Participation requirements for standard, improved and transitional care for all patients; and develop partnerships across other settings. The guide is the only federal tool available that is tailored to the adult Medicaid population.
 

This proposed rule provides guidance on eligibility redeterminations and renewal of coverage through Health Insurance Marketplaces for plan year 2015. This rule offers Marketplaces two new alternative options for conducting annual redeterminations. It also details the requirements for the content of the renewal or discontinuation notices that health insurance issuers must send to their enrollees before the first day of the open enrollment period.

This analysis uses evidence from the economics and health policy literatures to quantify several important consequences of States’ decisions not to expand Medicaid. That evidence, which is based primarily on careful analysis of the effects of past policy decisions, is necessarily an imperfect guide to the future, and the actual effects of Medicaid expansion under the ACA could be larger or smaller than the estimates presented below. However, this evidence is clear that the consequences of States’ decisions are far‐reaching, with implications for the health and well‐being of their citizens, their economies, and the economy of the Nation as a whole.

This monthly report on state Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) data represents state Medicaid and CHIP agencies’ eligibility activity for the calendar month of April 2014. While the initial open enrollment period for the Health Insurance Marketplace ended on March 31, Medicaid and CHIP enrollment continues year round. CMS reports that Medicaid and CHIP enrollment grew by 1.1 million in April, which brought the total Medicaid and CHIP enrollment to 65 million people by the end of that month.
 

This set of FAQs released by CMS provides information regarding eligibility, benefits and cost-sharing for Basic Health Program (BHP) enrollees, and additional details about BHP administration, contracting, and financing by state governments. CMS is currently developing a BHP Blueprint template, and will be making it available to states shortly.