State Medicaid agencies have delivered care and coverage to an unprecedented number of Americans during the public health emergency, and the Medicaid program continues to expand. At this year’s National Association of Medicaid Directors (NAMD) conference, held November 14–16 in Washington, DC, Mathematica experts will be available at Booth 47 and throughout the conference for meet and greets, where we will discuss the opportunities and challenges facing state Medicaid programs as they transform care delivery and quality, modernize analytics, and improve COVID-19 after-action planning.
“Each state’s Medicaid program faces unique issues throughout the policy process,” says Joshua Baker, vice president of state health and Medicaid at Mathematica. “There are new and emerging digital solutions that can help states through that process, producing insights on the effectiveness of their policies in a timely way. We look forward to discussing these strategies at the NAMD conference.”
Driven by enrollment growth during the public health emergency, the Medicaid program now covers roughly one in four Americans. Our partnership with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) addresses the urgency to (1) pursue innovations that will strengthen the delivery system for Medicaid and (2) transform digitally to continue furnishing high-quality care that promotes strong and stable families.
“Mathematica is currently engaged with 17 states as we help evaluate and improve their state health programs through digital transformation and data insights,” added Baker. “One way we’ve drawn on this expertise is by combining our knowledge of Medicaid home and community-based services with data analytics. Through these capabilities, we’ve been able to create platforms for states such as North Carolina and Massachusetts that pull data from service providers and transform that data into usable information and insights.”
Also top of mind for Medicaid directors is how to knit together public health and Medicaid. “The goal of having public health outcomes inform Medicaid program improvement is really infused into all our projects in some way,” said Carey Appold, vice president of Medicaid services. “Most important in these efforts will be getting more high-quality data that address health-related social needs, which will enable us to identify clearer strategies to increase health equity in the communities we serve.”
Visit us in the exhibit hall at Booth 47 or view our site for a rundown of our state health capabilities, as well as our approach to innovating with Medicaid data, to learn more about how Mathematica is progressing together on Medicaid care, quality, and delivery.
Here are some recent publications relevant to the topics discussed this week at the NAMD conference:
- Preventing and Addressing Unnecessary Medicaid Eligibility Churn Among Dually Eligible Individuals: Opportunities for States—This brief summarizes steps that states can take, in partnership with Dual-Eligible Special Needs Plans, to prevent unnecessary loss of Medicaid eligibility among dually eligible populations and to mitigate the impact of such losses.
- Promoting Access in Medicaid and CHIP Managed Care—This toolkit provides guidance and examples of how states can monitor access to long-term services and supports furnished through Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program managed care plans.
- Medicaid-CHIP Managed Care Quality Strategy Toolkit—This toolkit provides guidance on how states can develop quality strategies for their population health and quality improvement priorities.
Some of our budgetary evaluations include the following:
- Money Follows the Person: Updated State Transitions as of December 31, 2020
- Medicaid Long-Term Services and Supports Annual Expenditures Report: Federal Fiscal Year 2019
- Medicaid Section 1915(c) Waiver Programs Annual Expenditures and Beneficiaries Report: Analysis of CMS 372 Annual Reports, 2017–2018