Government Programs & The Uninsured

Register Now: 30-plus Speakers Slated for HMA Conference

The Future of Medicaid is Here: Implications for Payers, Providers and States is a two-day event organized by Health Management Associates (HMA). Confirmed speakers include industry executives from Medicaid plans across the nation as well as Medicaid directors from California, Florida, Kansas, Hawaii, Michigan, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington.

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It Takes a Community to Divert Populations with Behavioral Health Needs from Jail

This blog post was authored by HMA Principal Bren Manaugh, LCSW-S, CPHQ and Senior Consultant Laquisha Grant, MPA.

We have all seen the headlines about jails and prisons becoming the largest de facto mental healthcare providers in the country. Nationally, 14 to 17 percent of inmates have a serious mental illness, 53 to 68 percent have a substance use disorder[1], and up to 72 percent of jail inmates have both a mental illness and substance use disorder. The overrepresentation of individuals with mental illness and substance use disorder did not happen overnight — and it is not a result of one system or issue.

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HMA Conference to Feature Insights from Health Plan CEOs, State Medicaid Directors

Dates: September 11-12, 2017
Location: Renaissance Chicago Downtown Hotel

Waivers, block grants and per capita caps, member premiums and copays, health savings accounts, expansion, and new benefit design and funding models will take center stage as 35 speakers from leading health plans, states and providers join Health Management Associates for the high-level, two-day conference The Future of Medicaid is Here: Implications for Payers, Providers and States.

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HMA’s Raney, Lasky Edit Book that Serves as Guide for Implementing Integrated Care

Integrated Care: A Guide for Effective Implementation is co-edited by HMA’s Lori Raney, MD and Gina Lasky, PhD, MAPL and Collaborative Care Consulting’s Clare Scott, LCSW. The book provides a detailed, thoughtful, and experience-based guide to effective implementation of integrated behavioral healthcare. Using evidence and on the ground experience, the authors share practical and actionable advice for a complex model of care.

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Early Bird Registration Now Open for HMA’s 2017 Conference on the Future of Medicaid

Health Management Associates is pleased to announce that Early Bird Registration is now open for our second conference on Trends in Publicly Sponsored Healthcare, September 11-12, at the Renaissance Chicago Downtown Hotel. The theme of this year’s event is The Future of Medicaid is Here: Implications for Payers, Providers and States  

Featured speakers already include some of the nation’s most innovative healthcare leaders.  Visit the conference website to receive the Early Bird rate and stay up to date on the latest conference news: https://2017futureofmedicaid.healthmanagement.com/.

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HMA Completes Acquisition of SVC

SVC, founded by CMS Administrator Seema Verma, is now part of Health Management Associates (HMA). The acquisition, announced March 13 by HMA founder Jay Rosen, was finalized late Friday, March 31. SVC now becomes HMA Medicaid Market Solutions (HMA MMS), a subsidiary of HMA.

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Puerto Rico Health Care Update

This week, HMA Principal Juan Montanez, of our Washington, D.C. office, provides an update on the fiscal crisis in Puerto Rico, the relationship between the fiscal crisis and Puerto Rico’s Government Health Plan (GHP), as well as what may lie ahead for the GHP. Puerto Rico has been in the news over the last couple of years, primarily because of the central government’s inability to meet its debt obligations. In 2015 the central government’s finances reached a point where it could have literally run out of cash to service its debt and fund regular operations. A significant contributor to this fiscal crisis is the cost of and associated funding for the GHP, known colloquially on the island as Mi Salud (“My Health”). This article provides some history and context on the GHP, in addition to outlining current proposals for addressing the program’s impending funding “cliff.”

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Celebrating Doctors’ Day at HMA

March 30th is Doctors’ Day, and for most physicians that means a special lunch in the hospital cafeteria or a carnation on their white coat. But a few years ago, I hung up my white coat and made the transition to healthcare consulting. The questions immediately started. Won’t you miss seeing patients? What exactly will you do? Did you lose your license? That last one is my favorite. So what exactly is a doctor like me doing in a place like this?

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Loneliness is Lethal: Five Strategies to Improve Health Outcomes by Improving Social Connectedness

This blog post was authored by HMA clinicians Margaret Kirkegaard, MD, MPH, and Jeffrey Ring, PhD

While most people would agree that social relationships improve day-to-day quality of life, do social connections actually provide a health benefit? The answer is a resounding yes!

In 1921, a remarkable study began tracking the lives of 1,500 Americans from childhood to death. It sought to track what factors in life — such as faith, marriage, pets and exercise — increased longevity. The most significant finding was that strong social networks mattered the most. The quality of social connections was more significant than the quantity.[1] In an interview with National Public Radio, lead researcher Howard Friedman notes, “We saw that over and above the number of connections and the frequency of interactions that when those connections involved helping other people, reaching out, being actively engaged to do things for others, that was an added bonus on top of what we already see as quite beneficial from the social contacts themselves.”[2]

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