The roadmap is a comprehensive and exhaustive review of all services and supports available to Medicaid recipients.
Last week’s report on the state of the social determinants of health
(SDoH) offered my crystal ball of what healthcare organizations and systems can expect for the year to come. Most are still waiting for sound Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) guidance to tackle the SDoH, or at least point them in the right direction. With Medicaid expenditures over $600 billion for 2020 and expected to keep rising in 2021, there’s plenty of pent-up demand for strategic action in this area. CMS’s new Medicaid Social Determinants of Health Roadmap is being touted as an important step to mitigate fiscal and clinical gaps for providers.
On Jan. 7, letters were sent to state officials by federal officials. For those who either tossed the document aside or deleted the email, the subject heading was: Opportunities in Medicaid and CHIP to Address Social Determinants of Health (SDoH). The letter frames opportunities for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) programs to best address the SDoH and support states with requisite programs, benefits, and services that will improve population health, reduce disabilities, and lower healthcare costs.
The letter described:
The document is lengthy: 36 pages, followed by a 15-page tables that summarizes all the information. There is no magic wand in the accompanying envelope or email that providers can wave to automatically implement the recommendations. To be fair, the Roadmap is a comprehensive and exhaustive review of all services and supports available to Medicaid recipients, plus a solid resource tool for my case management colleagues. Monitor Mondays listeners were asked how much they anticipated the new Roadmap would benefit their organizations; the results were telling.
Programming Note: Listen to Ellen Fink-Samnick’s live reporting on the social determinants of health on Monitor Mondays, 10 a.m. Eastern.
I am sure everyone agrees that not only is providing healthcare complicated, but so are all the administrative aspects of healthcare. And as a result,
Let me start this article by asking for your help. Flash back to 2013. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) at that time
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