Author Archives: Lauren Zuzelski

This week, our In Focus section highlights the key points in Ohio’s proposal to CMS to in-tegrate care for dual eligible Medicaid-Medicaid enrollees. The demonstration program, known as the Ohio Integrated Care Delivery System (ICDS), will provide dual eligible enrollees with all Medicaid and Medicare services, including long term supports and services (LTSS).

This week, our In Focus section reviews Massachusetts’ State Demonstration to Integrate Care for Dual Eligible Individuals, released February 16, 2012. The state proposes a com-prehensive benefit package and combined Medicaid and Medicare funding stream to cover dual eligible individuals between ages 21 and 64.

This week, our In Focus section contains excerpts of the key takeaways from A Mid-Year State Medicaid Budget Update for FY 2012 and A Look Forward to FY 2013, published Monday, February 13, 2012, by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. This report was prepared by Vernon Smith, Kathleen Gifford and Michael Nardone from Health Management Associates, as well as Robin Rudowitz and Laura Snyder from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

This week, our In Focus section reviews the Phase I procurement under the Illinois Care Coordination Innovations Project. The Phase I RFP is the first step in a transition toward more managed care and care coordination in the State’s Medicaid program.

This week, our In Focus section reviews recent Medicaid MCO enrollment trends in 13 states. Many state Medicaid agencies elect to post to their website monthly enrollment figures by health plan for their Medicaid managed care population.

This week, our In Focus section reviews the recommendations provided to the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) by Navigant Consulting in its Friday, January 20, 2012 report. Navigant was contracted by DCH to review the existing Medicaid pro-gram in Georgia and provide recommendations, based on both a national scan of best practices across Medicaid systems, as well as an evaluation of the Georgia Medicaid en-vironment.

This week we are taking a break from our recent focus on Medicaid Managed Care procurements and dual-eligible care coordination integration projects, to review an emerging trend that is garnering attention among state officials. Specifically, we investigate the potential impact that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will have on financing for correctional health systems.

This week, our In Focus section reviews California Gov., Jerry Brown’s proposed 2012-2013 state budget, focusing particularly on several important changes to Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. The budget proposal, released last Thursday, January 5, pro-poses $4.4 billion in new taxes, which must be approved by voters, and includes trigger cuts to take place if the tax initiative fails at the voting booths.

This week, our In Focus section reviews the state-submitted letters of intent (LOIs) in response to CMS guidance on financial models for integration of care for dual eligible individuals enrolled in both Medicaid and Medicare. In a letter to state Medicaid directors, issued Friday, July 8, 2011, CMS offered two financial models that the federal government is highly interested in implementing in cooperation with state Medicaid agencies.

This week, our In Focus section reviews the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innova-tion (CMMI) Health Care Innovation Challenge. The CMMI Innovation Challenge initia-tive will award a total of $1 billion in funding through contracts of $1 million to $30 mil-lion to applicants who propose to rapidly implement new models of health care service delivery and payment improvements that meet the “triple aim” of: (1) improved health status for a population, (2) higher quality of the patient experience, and (3) lower costs. These models will organize the care for Medicare, Medicaid, and Children’s Health In-surance Program (CHIP) enrollees.