CMS Strategic Vision Includes Focus on HCBS Access

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure and Center for Medicaid & CHIP Services Director Daniel Tsai published a blog post this week outlining a strategic vision for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The rollout of this strategic vision is the culmination of a series of listening sessions CMS held this fall with stakeholders, including ANCOR.

The strategic vision as described by Administrator Brooks-LaSure and Director Tsai will focus on three key areas: coverage and access, equity, and innovation and whole-person care. These three goals are discussed below.

• Coverage and Access: This goal includes broadening access to Medicaid Home and Community Based Services (HCBS), specifically homing in on the challenges individuals seeking HCBS face due to differences in access and quality across states and “a nationally understaffed and underpaid workforce.” This goal also includes affirmative support for the 2014 CMS Settings Rule, which is intended to enhance the quality of Medicaid HCBS and provide additional protections to individuals that receive Medicaid HCBS services.
• Innovation and Whole-Person Care: Under this goal, CMS commits to setting a new goal of transitioning the vast majority of Medicaid beneficiaries into accountable care relationships by 2030.
• Equity: This objective in this goal is to address health disparities, beginning with better data collection. The plan is to work with states “on evidenced-based interventions targeted at reducing health disparities that hold states and providers accountable to ensure continued progress on reducing gaps in health equity.”