Mathematica and UConn’s Innovations Institute partner to advance policymakers’ understanding of how Medicaid and child welfare agencies ensure youth in the child welfare system receive access to health care

The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) has awarded a 10-month contract to Mathematica to help the commission better understand the role and responsibilities of state Medicaid and child welfare agencies in meeting the health care needs of children and youth served by the child welfare system. Mathematica has partnered with the University of Connecticut School of Social Work’s Innovations Institute to shed light on the current state-specific child welfare landscape.

This report will inform MACPAC’s deliberations on policies and strategies for ensuring that Medicaid- and CHIP-eligible children in the child welfare system have timely access to quality care. Partnerships between state Medicaid agencies and state child welfare agencies are key to achieving access to health care for children and youth in child welfare systems. However, coordination is challenging and financing is complex, with systematic, historical, and structural issues contributing to the complexity of this coordination.

Mathematica and Innovations Institute bring extensive expertise to the intersection of Medicaid and child welfare services at the federal, state, and local levels across the country. Through this project, Mathematica and Innovations Institute will identify current federal rules that require state Medicaid and child welfare agencies to ensure health care access for Medicaid-enrolled children and youth in foster care. They will select, profile, and interview Medicaid and child welfare agencies in seven states that are diverse in demographics, Medicaid systems and structures, child welfare systems and structures, and levels of innovation and system-reform initiatives. They will provide MACPAC with information on how states implement federal requirements around health care access and the issues they face in ensuring the delivery of all necessary health services. They will also identify opportunities to address gaps in access and care through changes in federal policy.

MACPAC is a nonpartisan federal legislative branch agency responsible for policy and data analysis and recommendations to Congress, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the states on issues affecting Medicaid and CHIP. The agency, comprising 17 commissioners from diverse regions across the U.S., is an independent source of information on Medicaid and CHIP. MACPAC publishes issue briefs and data reports throughout the year to support policy analysis and program accountability and to make recommendations to Congress on access to and quality of care, among other issues.