As part of its ongoing work on evaluations of demonstration waivers under Section 1115 of the Social Security Act, MACPAC convened an expert roundtable in November 2019 composed of state and federal officials, state demonstration program evaluators, researchers, and other stakeholders to gather information on the challenges facing the federal government and states in conducting timely, methodologically rigorous evaluations that can inform policy discussions.
This presentation provides background information on the use of Section 1115 demonstration waivers, current evaluation requirements, and CMS’s recent efforts to improve evaluation processes. It also describes takeaways from the roundtable discussion on challenges related to designing and carrying out strong and timely evaluations and using these to inform policy.