Physical Disabilities

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through CMS, awarded approximately $25 million in planning grants to five new states and territories to expand access to home and community-based services through Medicaid’s Money Follows the Person (MFP) demonstration program. With these awards, 41 states and territories across the country will now participate in MFP. Awards of up to $5 million have been granted to Illinois, Kansas, and New Hampshire, as well as for American Samoa and Puerto Rico. This is the first time MFP grants have been made available to territories. These awards will support the early planning phase for their MFP programs.

On Monday, August 22, 2022 CMS released the Money Follows the Person (MFP): Updated State Transitions annual report for calendar years 2017 to 2020. The MFP demonstration, established by Congress through the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, enables state Medicaid programs to help Medicaid beneficiaries who live in institutions transition into the community, and gives people with disabilities and older adults more choice in deciding where to live and to receive long-term services and supports. From the time transitions began in 2008 to the end of 2020, states had transitioned 107,128 people to community living through MFP. The brief shows how MFP transitions varied by state and target population over time.

This brief highlights key lessons to inform data-sharing partnerships between community-based organizations, state agencies, and individuals with lived expertise. Lessons draw from the experiences of participants in Learning and Action in Policy and Partnerships, a national initiative supporting community-based data-sharing efforts led by Data Across Sectors for Health in partnership with the Center for Health Care Strategies through support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

With support from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, CHCS brought together patients, providers, researchers, and clinicians to develop a Patient-Centered Complex Care Research Agenda. The agenda aims to embed a consistent focus on what matters most to patients into complex care research design and will be released in Fall 2022. This blog post shares lessons for including patient perspectives to guide research priorities, based on CHCS’ experience creating a patient and family advisory board and a research community to help inform the Research Agenda.

The Aging and Disability Business Institute has published two infographics exploring how Area Agencies on Aging and other community-based organizations address the social determinants of health of older adults and people with disabilities in their communities through contracts with health care entities. The infographics identify key partners and services in these contracts, as well as where this contracting activity is occurring around the country.

In this report, GAO explores the four agencies that oversee federal falls prevention programs, including the Administration on Community Living (ACL), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. GAO found that these programs serve limited numbers of individuals at risk of falls, including adults with disabilities under age 60. GAO's analysis of national data on self-reported falls from 2020 found that adults with disabilities aged 45 to 59 reported rates of falls and fall-related injuries that were higher than those reported by individuals 60 and over.

The Advancing Health Equity Learning Collaborative is seeking applicants for the next cohort of the collaborative, which will include five teams comprised of Medicaid agencies, managed care organizations, and health care provider organizations or systems. The learning collaborative will help teams develop shared equity priorities, uncover the drivers of disparities in their member populations, and create payment models to support equity-focused care transformation.

Late yesterday CMS released a State Medicaid Director Letter (SMDL 22-003) providing guidance for the first-ever HCBS Quality Measure Set, the first of two planned guidance documents from CMS. The HCBS Quality Measure Set is included in the SMD, starting on page 14. The list of measures includes the NQF number (if applicable), measure steward, and data collection method, as well as information on whether each measure addresses section 1915(c) waiver assurances and/or can be used to assess access, LTSS rebalancing, and/or community integration and HCBS settings requirements.

This Better Care Playbook profile of the SASH model is part of an ongoing series, In the Field: Spotlight on Complex Care Interventions, that is highlighting how organizations are implementing evidence-based and promising innovations to improve care for people with complex health and social needs.

The Narrative Matters section of the October issues of Health Affairs, focused on disability and health, is holding a poetry contest. Health Affairs is looking for poems touching on topics related to disabilities and health by writers who have experience with disability. Family members and caregivers of people with disabilities are welcomed to submit work as well. The winner will receive a $500 prize and have their poem featured in the October issue of Health Affairs. The deadline to submit a poem is July 25, 2022.