State Medicaid Agencies

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many providers to transition to telehealth when it became the only way patients could access health services. Medicaid agencies now have an opportunity to support phone-based telemedicine in primary care beyond the pandemic, and many are already doing so. This blog post explores strategies that Medicaid agencies can use to suport audio-only telehealth moving forward, including extending payment parity for telehealth visits and using value-based payment models.

CMS is inviting states to participate in a Medicaid learning collaborative. The learning collaborative is an opportunity for states to develop new solutions and identify promising practices to improve the delivery of supports and services for people with I/DD and their aging caregivers. The collaborative will consist of six monthly virtual learning sessions between November 2021 and April 2022.

CMS released a bulletin addressing frequently asked questions regarding Electronic Visit Verification (EVV) requirements to beneficiaries receiving in-home care. This bulletin responds to questions surrounding beneficiaries with live-in caregivers, services delivered partially in the beneficiary's home, the provision of medical supplies, equipment, and appliances as a component of the Medicaid home health benefit, and the use of web-based timesheets as an EVV method.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Center for Program Integrity (CPI) Provider Enrollment Operations Group (PEOG) released the Medicaid Provider Enrollment Compendium (MPEC). The Compendium is a policy manual that contains sub regulatory guidance and clarifications regarding how state Medicaid agencies are expected to comply with regulations at 42 CFR § 455.