The State of Arizona’s Medicaid agency (AHCCCS) recognizes the vital importance of safe, decent and affordable housing to health.

Medicaid helps low-income seniors, children, people with disabilities, and families get needed health care. Medicaid coverage improves families’ financial security by protecting them from medical debt and helping them stay healthy for work.

A whole host of factors — such as friends, housing and transportation — affect a person’s health and how much they need the social safety net. It’s time the government’s big health insurance programs took this reality into account, some lawmakers and policymakers are starting to argue.

Medicaid coverage reduced the prevalence of undiagnosed depression by almost 50% and untreated depression by more than 60%. It increased use of medications and reduced the share of respondents reporting unmet mental health care needs by almost 40%.

Delegates at the 2018 American Medical Association Annual Meeting in Chicago adopted several policies intended to alleviate chronic homelessness and racial housing segregation

The State of Arizona’s Medicaid agency (AHCCCS) recognizes the vital importance of safe, decent and affordable housing to health.

The nation’s public housing authorities are seeking closer links to health insurers and medical care providers to address social determinants of health.

The Denver Housing Authority (DHA) wins a 2017 Award of Excellence in Client and Resident Services for creating the Health Navigators (HN) program, which provides mental health education, resources, and doctor referrals.

The conditions in which people live, learn, work, and play affect health in myriad ways. State Medicaid agencies are increasingly exploring opportunities to address these social determinants of health (SDOH) in an effort to provide more efficient care and improve health outcomes.

Housing and health systems need to work together. Public housing authorities (PHAs) are significant providers of housing to those in need, offering the health sector scale and expertise. Little was known about how PHAs worked with the health sector writ large.

In response to the heightened interest in the relationship between work and the health of individuals and communities, CMCS has clarified that Medicaid funds cannot be used to pay beneficiaries’ wages, but can pay for employment counseling as an optional benefit—to help people get jobs.

Health and reentry are closely related, and chronic medical, mental health, and substance use problems make it harder for newly released people to seek employment, obtain housing, and avoid reincarceration.

Using a two-generation (2Gen) framework, Medicaid can be designed to support the social capital, health and well-being, educational attainment, and economic security of children and families, together, so they can maximize their health and thrive.

Prioritizing young children in Medicaid through cross-sector, innovative practice change has the potential to improve their lifetime trajectories, overall population health and long-run savings.

As the Trump Administration continues to encourage states to take Medicaid coverage away from people who don’t meet a work requirement, a new report describes Montana’s promising alternative: a workforce promotion program that targets state resources toward reducing barriers to work.

As state and federal officials increasingly search for ways to curb rising health care costs, a decades-old idea is gaining traction: helping people with challenges that have nothing to do with medical care but everything to do with their health.

Recent research shows that social safety net programs benefit everyone.

The administration has proposed an expansion of the “public charge” rule that would make it more difficult for applicants whom officials deem likely to rely on public assistance to obtain lawful permanent residence (a “green card”) or a temporary visa.

Some seniors and people with disabilities receiving home- and community-based services (HCBS) could lose their Medicaid eligibility and have to go into nursing homes to get needed care if Congress adjourns without extending “spousal impoverishment” protections that are set to expire on December 31.

The uninsured rate among children rose in 2017 from 4.7 percent to 5 percent, a new report from Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families finds — the first increase since Georgetown began producing this annual report a decade ago.

Studies have consistently documented high rates of obesity and tobacco use among individuals with serious mental illness.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar on Wednesday said Medicaid may soon allow hospitals and health systems to directly pay for housing, healthy food or other solutions for the "whole person."

For providers in the Supportive Housing arena, it is no secret that the road to recovery begins with housing. However, this fact has not always been recognized by major healthcare entities, like Medicaid.

In the first session of this series, Foothold Technology Director of Client Services, Paul Rossi and Senior Advisor, David Bucciferro, along with Sue Augustus from CSH, bring us back to basics of all things Medicaid.

The new opioid legislation—the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention That Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act (the SUPPORT Act)—signed into law on October 24 includes targeted expansions in treatment, including provisions that provide funding or flexibility to states