- Telehealth Study Recruiting Veterans Now
- USDA Delivers Immediate Relief to Farmers, Ranchers and Rural Communities Impacted by Recent Disasters
- Submit Nominations for Partnership for Quality Measurement (PQM) Committees
- Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation of the Medicare Program (Executive Order 14192) - Request for Information
- Dr. Mehmet Oz Shares Vision for CMS
- CMS Refocuses on its Core Mission and Preserving the State-Federal Medicaid Partnership
- Social Factors Help Explain Worse Cardiovascular Health among Adults in Rural Vs. Urban Communities
- Reducing Barriers to Participation in Population-Based Total Cost of Care (PB-TCOC) Models and Supporting Primary and Specialty Care Transformation: Request for Input
- Secretary Kennedy Renews Public Health Emergency Declaration to Address National Opioid Crisis
- Secretary Kennedy Renews Public Health Emergency Declaration to Address National Opioid Crisis
- 2025 Marketplace Integrity and Affordability Proposed Rule
- Rural America Faces Growing Shortage of Eye Surgeons
- NRHA Continues Partnership to Advance Rural Oral Health
- Comments Requested on Mobile Crisis Team Services: An Implementation Toolkit Draft
- Q&A: What Are the Challenges and Opportunities of Small-Town Philanthropy?
Things You Need to Know about Community HealthChoices
Community HealthChoices (CHC) is Pennsylvania’s mandatory managed care program for individuals who are dually eligible for both Medical Assistance and Medicare–older adults and individuals with physical disabilities. This program was implemented in southwestern Pennsylvania in January 2018, southeastern Pennsylvania in January 2019, and will be implemented in the remainder of the state on Jan. 1, 2020. CHC information for providers or participants can be found at www.healthchoices.pa.gov. Fact sheets and online trainings can be found here. Access a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) about CHC by clicking here. To become part of the provider network contact:
- AmeriHealth Caritas: 1-800-521-6007; email: chcproviders@amerihealthcaritas.com
- Pennsylvania Health & Wellness: 1-844-626-6813; email: information@pahealthwellness.com
- UPMC Community HealthChoices: 1-844-860-9303; email: CHCProviders@UPMC.edu
Pennsylvania Senate Advances Telemedicine Bill
During the week of October 28, 2019, the Pennsylvania Senate quickly fast-tracked a telemedicine bill that nearly made it to Governor Wolf’s desk last December. Senate Bill 857 expands the use of telemedicine for providers, including Community Health Centers , to provide care and receive reimbursement from both managed care organizations (MCOs) and commercial insurance. One new caveat to the bill is a requirement for any affected licensure boards overseeing specialties to promulgate regulations within 24 months of passage. As of October 30, the legislation is before the House for consideration.
Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children’s Annual State of Children’s Health Care Report Released
The opportunity to prosper begins with preventive health care when children are young. A healthy start includes immunizations, screenings, regular dental care, well-child visits and access to nutritious food. However, 124,000 Pennsylvania children do not have health insurance, and children under six are the most likely to be without coverage according to our newest report, “State of Children’s Health Care in Pennsylvania: Powering Up Healthy Kids.”
While Pennsylvania’s uninsured rate falls below the national average, it remains stagnant at 4.4 percent, with Pennsylvania ranking in the middle of the pack at 24th for the percentage of uninsured children.
According to a new report released by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, the number of uninsured children increased nationally by more than 400,000 between 2016 and 2018, reversing a long-standing positive trend.
No child should be without health care insurance and our report sets a clear agenda to strengthen both access and coverage benefits in health care for the Commonwealth’s children.
A New Website for Substance Use Disorder Care
(AP/PBS Newshour, 10/30/19)
The Trump administration has launched a website intended to help people connect with treatment options for substance use disorders. The website, FindTreatment.gov, includes customizable tools that allow users to search for providers based on the type of treatment they want—including detox, inpatient, or telemedicine—and by payment method and insurance type.
Research: Policy Change and Implementation of a Needle Exchange Program Averts More than 10,000 Potential Diagnoses of HIV
Syringe exchange programs (SEP) reduce HIV incidence associated with injection drug use (IDU), but legislation often prohibits implementation. We examined the policy change impact allowing for SEP implementation on HIV diagnoses among people who inject drugs in 2 US cities.
Using surveillance data from Philadelphia (1984–2015) and Baltimore (1985–2013) for IDU-associated HIV diagnoses, we used autoregressive integrated moving averages modeling to conduct 2 tests to measure policy change impact. We forecast the number of expected HIV diagnoses per city had policy not changed in the 10 years after implementation and compared it with the number of observed diagnoses postpolicy change, obtaining an estimate for averted HIV diagnoses. We then used interrupted time series analysis to assess the immediate step and trajectory impact of policy change implementation on IDU-attributable HIV diagnoses.
The Philadelphia (1993–2002) model predicted 15,248 new IDU-associated HIV diagnoses versus 4656 observed diagnoses, yielding 10,592 averted HIV diagnoses over 10 years. The Baltimore model (1995–2004) predicted 7263 IDU-associated HIV diagnoses versus 5372 observed diagnoses, yielding 1891 averted HIV diagnoses over 10 years. Considering program expenses and conservative estimates of public sector savings, the 1-year return on investment in SEPs remains high: $243.4 M (Philadelphia) and $62.4 M (Baltimore).
The authors conclude that pPolicy change is an effective structural intervention with substantial public health and societal benefits, including reduced HIV diagnoses among people who inject drugs and significant cost savings to publicly funded HIV care.
Access the full report here.