Mathematica Issues Report on Money Follows the Person Program

On May 11, Mathematica Policy Research issued an annual report on the Money Follows the Person (MFP) program evaluating data from 2015. The MFP program is a rebalancing demonstration which seeks to support the successful transition of individuals from institutional care into home and community based settings. The report was commissioned by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The report is the seventh in a series of annual reports produced to evaluate the impact of the MFP program. The report shows that in 2015, the number of individuals successfully transitioned was the highest of any year since the program’s inception in 2007, growing by 23 percentage points over 2014. The report concludes that the program has been responsible for more transitions of older adults residing in nursing homes and beneficiaries residing in ICFs/IID than would have occurred had the program not been in place. The report also includes a cost analysis, determining that the program is responsible for approximately $27,000 in cost savings per person for those transitioned through 2013. Finally, the report looks at quality of life outcomes, and finds that there were significant improvements to quality of life among program participants, that these improvements are present at a higher rate than among individuals not in the program, and that they are largely sustained after two years.