Chapter 1 focuses on health equity and includes recommendations on ways to improve Medicaid race and ethnicity data collection and reporting. Racial and ethnic health disparities persist throughout the U.S. health care system. These issues are exacerbated by the high rates of missing data on race and ethnicity, which may lead to inaccurate and incomplete understanding of health disparities. The Commission recommends updating the Medicaid application questions for race and ethnicity, including information about the purpose of the questions.
Additionally, the Commission recommends developing model training materials for application assisters to ensure consistent and accurate information is provided to applicants. These recommendations aim to address the challenges of collecting accurate and complete race and ethnicity data in Medicaid, which can lead to improvements in understanding and addressing health disparities.
From: March 2023 Report to Congress on Medicaid and CHIP