Under the Affordable Care Action Section 2703, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is offering states an option to provide health homes for members with chronic conditions, with enhanced federal support. This option covers the enhanced integration and coordination of primary, acute, behavioral health, and long-term services and supports for persons across the lifespan with chronic illness. It provides an opportunity to build a person-centered system of care that achieves improved outcomes for beneficiaries and better services and value for State Medicaid programs. This provision supports CMS’s overarching approach to improving health care through the simultaneous pursuit of three goals: improving the experience of care; improving the health of populations; and reducing per capita costs of health care (without any harm whatsoever to individuals, families, or communities). To take advantage of this opportunity, states must submit a Medicaid State Plan Amendment (SPA).
BMS has been soliciting input on various aspects of the SPA through several mechanisms. Work groups on specific topics were set up at the time of project launch and each met several times during the early planning stages. More recently, webcasts have been conducted for any interested stakeholders and each has provided an opportunity to ask questions and provide comments on the progress of the SPA to date. Slides from each of these stakeholder meetings are posted in the
presentations area of the Health Homes work space. The most current copy of the SPA draft can be accessed by
clicking here.