Medicaid Buy-In

This assessment is designed to answer important questions about the population eligible for DVR services that live in Maine and their vocational rehabilitation needs. Maine Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) assists eligible individuals with disabilities to prepare for, achieve and retain employment in integrated community settings. The goal is to provide services to all eligible consumers at the time that they need them to achieve competitive, community-based employment.

Do you currently employ anyone with a physical or mental disability? Business owners and decision-makers across the state of Maine were asked questions regarding the employment of people with disabilities in that state. This is the summary of the 432 surveys collected.

Review this sample of an MOU between the Alaskan Division of Vocational Rehabilitation and the Alaskan Division of Behavioral Health. It addresses providing equal access to employment, not just as a fundamental right for those affected by behavioral disabilities, but as an essential step towards better behavioral health. Use this sample MOU as a template if your program were trying to craft a similar document.

This employee survey captures the consumer’s level of disability and if and how it is being addressed in the workplace. The survey is specific to those employed by the state. Use this tool as a template to designing a questionnaire in your program.

The Medicaid Buy-In program is a key component of the federal effort to make it easier for people with disabilities to work without losing health benefits. This issue brief, the ninth in a series on workers with disabilities, examines the prevalence and characteristics of Medicaid Buy-In participants who leave the program as well as their participation status in other public programs and their employment outcomes after disenrollment.

This program (HWD) is Washington’s implementation of Medicaid Buy-In. The report evaluates HWD’s impact on employment and earnings, Medicaid coverage, and receipt of food stamps by comparing enrollees to traditional Medicaid participants. They found significant outcome improvements for the HWD group in several categories.

The Chartbook documents trends in enrollment, earnings, employment, medical expenditures, and consumer experiences and satisfaction since Kansas began its Buy-In program. Summarized are survey and administrative data that document increased earnings and taxes paid over time by participants, decreased medical expenditures for those continuously enrolled, and improved quality of life and financial status.

The second in a series focused on affordable housing, this issue brief focuses on developing partnerships with state finance agencies and other stakeholders. It showcases successful strategies that have expanded integrated community living for workers with disabilities. While MIG grantees, who are the main audience of this brief, are unable to use grant funds to provide housing services, they can create linkages with other programs to support the individuals they serve.

This brief, the eighth in a series on working with disability, looks at the employment outcomes of participants in CommonHealth Working (CHW), Massachusetts’s Medicaid Buy-In program. Differences in post-enrollment employment rates, monthly hours worked and earnings, and private health insurance coverage are compared between new CHW enrollees previously covered by MassHealth, Massachusetts’s Medicaid program, and those without prior MassHealth coverage.

The Medicaid Buy-In (MBI), Social Security Disability Income (SSDI), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs all provide workers with disabilities options to maintain health coverage if they earn too much for Medicaid or Medicare benefits. The first issue brief explains how these programs compare and interact in terms of eligibility, coverage, populations, and enrollment. The second examines how MBI participants that collect SSDI utilize SSDI work incentives.