The Commission devoted Thursday morning of the January 2020 MACPAC meeting to issues related to maternity care for pregnant women with substance use disorder (SUD) and infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). The first part of the discussion set the context for the morning, with a staff presentation on the prevalence of these conditions and implications for Medicaid. The second session featured a panel with Olivia Alford, director of the Value-Based Purchasing Unit in Maine’s Medicaid program; Dr. James Becker, vice dean of health care policy and external affairs at the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine at Marshall University and medical director at West Virginia Medicaid; and Dr. Stephen Patrick, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy and associate professor of pediatrics and health policy at Vanderbilt University. The panel discussed access to treatment for pregnant women with an SUD and infants with NAS, as well as steps that states are taking to improve access to care for these populations.
In the afternoon, the Commission turned its attention to integrated care for dually eligible beneficiaries. The Commission began with a briefing on a new analysis of the availability of integrated care at the county level, later pivoting to policy options for improving integration and laying out issues that could be included in MACPAC’s June 2020 report to Congress.
The final sessions of the afternoon reviewed two draft chapters in the upcoming March 2020 report: the first on state readiness for mandatory reporting of core sets of quality measures in Medicaid and CHIP, and the second on improving the quality and timeliness of Section 1115 demonstration evaluations.
On Friday, the Commission returned to themes from its Thursday discussions, beginning with a presentation by Dr. Katy Kozhimannil, director of the Rural Health Research Center and associate professor at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, on work done under contract to MACPAC on maternal morbidity among women covered by Medicaid. The following session turned back to dually eligible beneficiaries, with an overview of policy options for improving participation in the Medicare Savings Programs. The final session of the January meeting examined the impact of prior period adjustments on Medicaid expenditure data.
Presentations
- Access to Treatment for Pregnant Women with a Substance Use Disorder and Infants with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome
- Geographic Availability of Integrated Care Models for Dually Eligible Beneficiaries
- Integrated Care for Dually Eligible Beneficiaries: Policy Options
- Review of Draft Chapter for March Report: State Readiness for Mandatory Core Set Reporting
- Draft Chapter: Improving the Quality and Timeliness of Section 1115 Demonstration Evaluations
- Maternal Morbidity among Women in Medicaid
- Improving Participation in the Medicare Savings Programs
- Interpreting Trends in Spending Data: Impact of Prior Period Adjustments