This Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) listserv includes the following Medicaid/Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) renewal information:

• Recent CMS Releases
• Updated Toolkit: Reaching Children and Families in School-Based and Early Education and Care Settings
• Free CMS Printed Product Ordering

RECENT CMS RELEASES

In September 2024, CMS released an informational bulletin to provide updated information on the timing and expectations for all states to achieve compliance with all federal renewal requirements, including states that implemented CMS-approved mitigation strategies and those who have since identified areas of non-compliance with renewal requirements. Compliance plans will detail how states will achieve compliance with all applicable requirements no later than December 31, 2026. To accompany the informational bulletin, CMS also released a compliance template, which the state should use to submit the compliance plan and a slide deck to serve as an additional resource on renewal compliance guidance.

• Informational Bulletin: State Compliance with Medicaid and CHIP Renewal Requirements by December 31, 2026
• Compliance Template: Assessment and Plan for Compliance with All Federal Medicaid and CHIP Renewal Requirements
• Slide Deck: Overview of Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility Renewals 

UPDATED TOOLKIT: REACHING CHILDREN AND FAMILIES IN SCHOOL-BASED AND EARLY EDUCATION AND CARE SETTINGS 

CMS recently updated the Reaching Children and Families in School-Based and Early Education and Care Settings Toolkit on the Medicaid and CHIP Renewals Outreach and Educational Resources page. This update includes evergreen language that education and early education professionals can use to share information about regular Medicaid and CHIP renewals with parents and families. The toolkit includes ready-to-use resources, such as:

• Letter from School/ECE Leadership to Teachers, Nurses, Counselors, etc.
• Letter from Schools/ECE, Teachers, Nurses, Counselors, etc. to Parents/Students
• Social Media Messages
• “Three Things You Can Do” Checklist
• Robocall Script
• No Reply Text/Group Message/Email

FREE CMS PRINTED PRODUCT ORDERING

Select CMS Medicaid and CHIP renewals materials are available to order for free through the CMS Product Ordering website. To order free printed materials, visit the CMS Product Ordering website. If you do not have an account, you will need to request an account on the login page. Once you log into your account, you can enter the term “Unwinding” in the search bar to view the materials that are available for order.

Materials on enrolling in health coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace are also available to order for free through the CMS Product Ordering website. Once you log into your account, you can select the tab titled “Marketplace” to view materials related to Marketplace enrollment, Coverage to Care, and more that are available to order.

Largest POWER funding package to date is expected to create more than 2,400 new jobs and train over 10,500 workers for new opportunities in Appalachia’s coal-impacted communities across 10 states.  

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) awarded $68.2 million to 65 projects through its Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization (POWER) Initiative. POWER directs federal resources to economic diversification and revitalization projects in Appalachian communities affected by the downturn of the coal industry.

Today’s award package is ARC’s largest POWER investment since the initiative was launched in 2015, with projects impacting 188 counties in 10 Appalachian states: Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. ARC recognizes that Hurricane Helene has impacted multiple Appalachian communities and grantees, including some POWER award recipients. ARC will continue working with affected state and grantee partners to address their needs as they recover and rebuild.

“ARC’s POWER initiative supports coal-impacted communities’ preparation for the next phase of Appalachia’s economy, while ensuring that residents have a say in the course of their own futures,” said ARC Federal Co-Chair Gayle Manchin. “The investments announced in this round of POWER will help train workers, advance new industries, and build upon the progress already being made toward a brighter future full of economic opportunity for our region.”

ARC’s 2024 POWER awardees and their partners will use funding to strengthen a variety of industries – including advanced manufacturing, entrepreneurship, healthcare, and workforce development – to enhance job training and employment opportunities, create jobs in existing and new industries, and attract new sources of private investment in coal-impacted communities.

ARC Federal Co-Chair Gayle Manchin announced the awards alongside state and federal partners and grantees at the Mill 19 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, headquarters of POWER grantee Catalyst Connection and sub-grantees Carnegie Mellon University’s Manufacturing Futures Institute and the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute. Catalyst Connection’s CEO Petra Mitchell spoke about the new $2 million POWER grant to help create pathways to employment in advanced manufacturing.

“We are excited for our new POWER project, which will allow us to build on our progress of preparing our regional workforce for in-demand jobs in the advanced manufacturing industry,” said Catalyst Connection President and CEO Petra Mitchell. “Manufacturing jobs offer workers from hard hit Appalachian communities hope and opportunities for family-sustaining wages and community development. When manufacturing companies and workers succeed, everyone in the local community can benefit.”

Since 2015, ARC has invested $484.7 million in 564 projects impacting 365 coal-impacted counties. Collectively, these investments are projected to support nearly 54,000 jobs and prepare nearly 170,000 workers and students for new opportunities in growing industries.

ARC plans to release a notice of solicitations of applications (NOSA) for the POWER Initiative in early 2025.

Learn more about ARC’s POWER Initiative and our new POWER grantees at arc.gov/POWER.

Twice a month, a 40-foot-long truck transformed into a mobile clinic travels the Rio Grande Valley to provide rural Texans with women’s health care, including birth control.

The clinic, called the UniMóvil, is part of the Healthy Mujeres program at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine.

The U.S. has about 3,000 mobile health programs. But Saul Rivas, an OB-GYN, said he wasn’t aware of any that shared the specific mission of Healthy Mujeres when he helped launch the initiative in 2017. “Mujeres” means “women” in Spanish.

It’s now part of a small but growing number of mobile programs aimed at increasing rural access to women’s health services, including long-acting reversible contraception.

There are two kinds of these highly effective methods: intrauterine devices, known as IUDs, and hormonal implants inserted into the upper arm. These birth control options can be especially difficult to obtain — or have removed — in rural areas.

“Women who want to prevent an unintended pregnancy should have whatever works best for them,” said Kelly Conroy, senior director of mobile and maternal health programs at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

The school is launching a mobile women’s health and contraception program in rural parts of the state this month.

Rural areas have disproportionately fewer doctors, including OB-GYNs, than urban areas. And rural providers may not be able to afford to stock long-acting birth control devices or may not be trained in administering them, program leaders say.

Mobile clinics help shrink that gap in rural care, but they can be challenging to operate, said Elizabeth Jones, a senior director at the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association.

Money is the greatest obstacle, Jones said. The Texas program costs up to $400,000 a year. A 2020 study of 173 mobile clinics found they cost an average of more than $630,000 a year. Mobile dental programs were the most expensive, averaging more than $1 million.

While many programs launch with the help of grants, they can be difficult to sustain, especially with over a decade of decreased or stagnant funding to Title X, a federal money stream that helps low-income people receive family planning services.

For example, a mobile contraception program serving rural Pennsylvania lasted less than three years before closing in 2023. It shut down after losing federal funding, said a spokesperson for the clinic that ran it.

Read more.

ProviderBridge.org was created through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act by the Federation of State Medical Boards and HRSA’s Office for the Advancement of Telehealth. The site provides up-to-date information on emergency regulation and licensing by state as well as a provider portal to connect volunteer health care professionals to state agencies and health care entities.

Designed to serve Spanish-speaking communities, the online tool from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) offers confidential and anonymous access to nearby treatment facilities and practitioners.

The report from the National Rural Health Resource Center was done in collaboration with FORHP and is a product of the May 2024 Rural Health Workforce Summit.  Each of the report’s four key strategies include specific and practical actions that can be adopted to address workforce shortages.

– Comment by November 12. This proposed rule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) sets standards for Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplaces and issuers, as well as requirements for agents, brokers, web-brokers, direct enrollment entities, and assisters that help Marketplace consumers. It includes proposals to:

• prevent unauthorized activity among agents and brokers,
• mitigate health disparities by incentivizing plans that focus on underserved communities, and
• simplify plan choices.

Since 2018, the number of Marketplace plans in rural areas has grown, increasing the choices of coverage available to consumers.

Researchers from the North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center created a model for predicting rural hospital closures in 2017. This update for 2024 was published last week in The Journal of Rural Health.

The latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) highlights just how connected Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are to adolescent health.  Billed as the most comprehensive data yet on this subject, the report concludes that preventing ACEs could reduce suicide attempts by as much as 89 percent, prescription pain medication misuse by as much as 84 percent, and persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness by as much as 66 percent. Earlier this year, the CDC issued a Rural Policy Brief showing suicide rates have been consistently higher in rural areas than in urban areas over the past two decades.  Between 2000-2020, suicide rates increased 46 percent in non-metro areas compared to 27.3 percent in metro areas.  A separate CDC Rural Policy Brief on suicide prevention released in July features a case study from a successful program for adolescents in tribal community in New Mexico.  In 2018, the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services delivered an in-depth report on the rural context for ACEs, with recommendations for federal policy.