HMA Insights – including our new podcast – puts the vast depth of HMA’s expertise at your fingertips, helping you stay informed about the latest healthcare trends and topics. Below, you can easily search based on your topic of interest to find useful information from our podcast, blogs, webinars, case studies, reports and more.
This week our In Focus section reviews the issue brief and policymaker playbook that explore the outlook for temporary COVID-19-related changes to the Medicare and Medicaid programs, prepared in partnership with Manatt Health for The SCAN Foundation. HMA experts Jennifer Podulka, Yamini Narayan, and Keyan Javadi offer a framework to support policymakers’ decisions on the future of temporary policies and highlight specific flexibilities that are good candidates for consideration. These temporary flexibilities expanded program eligibility and enrollment, enhanced remote service delivery options, authorized care delivery in alternative care sites, and much more.
A new person-centered assessment framework and issue brief, authored by HMA experts in conjunction with Manatt Health, examine the temporary regulatory Medicare and Medicaid flexibilities implemented during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) and aimed at ensuring access to care for older adults and people with chronic conditions and disabilities.
As these temporary flexibilities are currently set to expire in April 2022, the report provides insight and guidance for policymakers as they assess the impact these regulatory policy changes are having on advancing person- and community-centered care and consider possible permanence of these changes.
The framework is designed to help facilitate these conversations and decisions and assess the potential for continuation of the regulatory flexibilities to advance person- and community-centered care, facilitate access to care in the least intensive or least restrictive setting, and better align Medicare and Medicaid program rules.
HMA colleagues Jennifer Podulka, Yamini Narayan, and Keyan Javadi contributed to the framework and research.
HMA Principal Jane Longo, Federal Policy Principal Andrea Maresca, and a team of experts from across HMA and HMA companies weigh in on the recent guidance to states on preparing for the end of the Public Health Emergency.
This year, one of the most significant issues the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is considering is whether and when to end the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) declaration. The PHE declaration has important implications for Medicaid enrollees as well as state Medicaid agencies and stakeholders.
The Moran Company, an HMA Company Principal Clare Mamerow, will be a featured speaker in the upcoming Foley Hoag LLP webinar titled, “The New Technology Add-on Payment (NTAP) Program: What Life Sciences Companies Should Know About Medicare’s Time-Limited Program.”
In October 2021, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (the Innovation Center) published a white paper outlining its strategic vision and direction of the healthcare delivery system for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries through 2030. This included a focus on high-quality primary care, which they identify as the foundation of our health system, to achieve equitable, whole-person, integrated care and outcomes.
This webinar was held on March 24, 2022.
Since 2018, the federal government has granted more than $5 billion in State Opioid Response (SOR) funds aimed at supporting evidence-based prevention, treatment, and recovery of opioid use disorder (OUD). The most successful state initiatives have focused on driving healthcare delivery system changes designed to increase timely, consistent, high-quality access to treatment and support services, including the use of medication assisted treatment (MAT). During this webinar, speakers showcased best-in-class efforts by states like California, Delaware, and Illinois to leverage SOR funding and achieve measurable, system-wide improvement in OUD treatment and outcomes.
Learning Objectives
Speakers
Marsha Johnson, Managing Principal, HMA, Philadelphia, PA
Bren Manaugh, Principal, HMA, Austin, TX
Kathleen Monahan, Project Director, State Opioid Response, Illinois
Brent Waninger, Chief, Workforce Development and Education, Project Coordinator, State Opioid Response, Delaware
Reference Materials
Expanding Substance Use Disorder Treatment for Persons Involved in the Justice System
This week our In Focus section reviews scenarios in which the federal Public Health Emergency (PHE) may expire. In the weeks ahead, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Xavier Becerra, will be faced with the decision of whether to extend the PHE or to allow it to expire. Dozens of critical waivers and coverage flexibilities are currently linked to the federal PHE and have enabled patients, providers, and payors to receive, deliver, and pay for health care for nearly two years. To date, the PHE has been extended eight times, each for the maximum allowed 90 days. However, declining COVID-19 infection rates and actions by state governors to relax COVID-19-related public health measures have renewed pressure on the Biden Administration to signal how they will choose to act on April 16, 2022 when the current federal PHE expires.
