Today, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell announced a new innovative collaboration with states to improve care for Medicaid beneficiaries by accelerating efforts in reforming their health care systems to improve health and care while reducing costs. The goals and activities of the Medicaid Innovation Accelerator Program build on many of the recent recommendations made by the National Governors Association’s (NGA) Health Care Sustainability Task Force.
This initiative is consistent with states’ recommendation that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) identify opportunities for care improvement and addressing high priority areas such as mental health and emergency department utilization. Through the Medicaid Innovation Accelerator Program, HHS is investing over $100 million in technical support to help states in their efforts to improve health, improve care and decrease costs for their Medicaid beneficiaries. While complementing other federal-state delivery system reform efforts such as the State Innovation Models initiative, this new initiative will help jumpstart innovation by providing federal tools and resources to support states in advancing Medicaid-specific delivery system reform.
“Medicaid innovation is moving forward, and the new Medicaid Innovation Accelerator Program, announced in response to recommendations from Governors, will give states the opportunity to even further strengthen their great work,” said Secretary Burwell. “HHS will provide strategically targeted resources that states can leverage to enhance the impact of their efforts to transform health care.”
“We are very pleased by this new effort to develop performance partnerships with states that can deliver better health outcomes at a cost we can afford,” said Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber. “Using the reform principles developed by a bipartisan NGA Health Care Sustainability Task Force that I co-chaired with Governor Haslam, Oregon has begun to prove these principles can deliver. We look forward to working with HHS, NGA and other states to scale this work.”
“The Task Force’s recommendations highlighted many key areas that needed reform, and I appreciate the continued conversations CMS has had with us about these areas,” said Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam. “This new initiative and investment demonstrate that there is great benefit to state-federal collaboration.”
The Medicaid Innovation Accelerator Program will develop Medicaid specific resources to support state-based innovative health care reform efforts by identifying and advancing new Medicaid service delivery and financing models to improve patient care by providing data analytics, improving quality measurement and rapid cycle evaluation capabilities, and advancing effective and timely dissemination of best practices and learning among states.
New resources improve states’ abilities to advance Medicaid payment and delivery system reform.