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A new brief, “Fostering Financial Empowerment for Youth and Young Adults with Disabilities,” published by the Office of Disability Employment Policy’s (ODEP) Center for Advancing Policy on Employment for Youth (CAPE-Youth), provides policy considerations that help youth, young adults, and their families foster financial literacy. These strategies aim to alleviate financial pressures for young individuals as they navigate the transition to employment and adulthood. This brief provides policymakers with key considerations for initiating systemic change to improve financial literacy for youth and young adults with disabilities (Y&YADs)...

The Foundation for Social Connection has created a catalog of interventions with the primary goal of advancing social connection, which is now live on their website. The intervention catalog is for companies and non-profit organizations that provide specific interventions (e.g. products, services, and programs) to directly address social isolation, loneliness, and social disconnection. The primary outcome of the intervention should be to foster and build social connection or address social isolation and loneliness.

On January 31, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the Calendar Year (CY) 2025 Advance Notice for the Medicare Advantage (MA) and Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Programs that would update payment policies for these programs. The Advance Notice proposes annual updates to MA payment growth rates and changes to the MA and Part D payment methodologies to improve payment accuracy. For calendar year 2025, CMS proposes an MA payment increase of 3.7 percent, or over $16 billion; however, the agency also proposes a 3.9% risk coding adjustment. The CY 2025 Advance Notice also includes the continued phase-in of the updated MA risk adjustment model and updates to the calculation of growth rates related to medical education...

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently launched the Value-Based Care Spotlight, a new website that aims to enhance understanding of value-based care (VBC) as a cornerstone of transforming health care with helpful information for both the public and health care providers. In value-based care, doctors and other health care providers work together to manage a person's overall health, while considering an individual's personal health goals. Value-Based Care Spotlight features Patient & Provider Voices, real-world stories that show the meaningful impact of VBC, as well as descriptions of key concepts, such as person-centered care and Accountable Care.

On January 29, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced increased participation in CMS’ accountable care organization (ACO) initiatives in 2024. ACOs are groups of doctors, hospitals, and other health care professionals that work together to provide high-quality, coordinated service and health care, improve health outcomes, and manage costs. CMS announced that 19 newly formed ACOs in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (Shared Savings Program) are participating in a new, permanent payment option beginning in 2024 that is enabling these ACOs to receive more than $20 million in advance investment payments (AIPs) to care for people who are medically underserved. An additional 50 ACOs are new to the program in 2024...

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the final national snapshot for the 2024 Marketplace Open Enrollment (OEP), reporting that 21.3 million consumers have signed up for 2024 individual market health insurance coverage through the Marketplaces since the start of the 2024 OEP on November 1. This includes 16.4 million Marketplace plan selections in the 32 states using the HealthCare.gov platform for the 2024 plan year through the end of the OEP on January 16, 2024 (Week 11+), and 4.9 million plan selections in the 18 states and the District of Columbia with State-based Marketplaces (SBMs) that are using their own eligibility and enrollment platforms, through January 13, 2024 (Week 11) or the end of their OEP...

On January 22, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that, together with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), it will launch a series of actions to educate the public about their rights to emergency medical care and to help support efforts of hospitals to meet their obligations under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). This comprehensive plan was developed in response to a growing number of inquiries from patients and providers to CMS about how they can ensure that federal obligations were being met...

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released an article providing an overview of the laws that federal agencies must comply with to provide people with disabilities access to accommodations to ensure they are able to participate fully in the workplace. The article focuses on accommodations that improve access to job facilities, physical spaces, and information technology. These include accommodations like automated doors, handrails and stair treads, accessible parking spaces, and adaptive computer hardware and software, providing ASL interpreters, and providing written materials in large print or Braille...

The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Education (ED) recently released an updated joint policy statement on supporting the inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood programs. The policy statement reiterates expectations for inclusive early childhood settings and updates recommendations for state and local agencies that implement Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Head Start, child care, home visit, preschool, and public school programs to increase inclusive early learning opportunities for all children. It also includes evidence-based models and examples of inclusion, as well as resources to support high-quality individualized programming and inclusion of children...

ADvancing States and the ARPA HCBS TA Collective are pleased to announce the release of an issue brief examining states’ efforts to understand the impact of their home and community-based (HCBS) projects implemented with unprecedented new Federal investment under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). With such a massive investment in our nation’s largest HCBS delivery systems, it is critically important to distill learnings about which types of the states’ investments resulted in desired outcomes and which did not. Armed with such information, our state and national leaders will be better informed to establish policies when making future investments related to Medicaid HCBS.