NASHP Blog: Emerging State Innovations in Developing a Medicaid Community-Based Palliative Care Benefit
The National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) has posted a blog titled, "Emerging State Innovations in Developing a Medicaid Community-Based Palliative Care Benefit."
Research has found relationships between palliative care consultation and lower hospital costs for Medicaid beneficiaries, indicating that palliative care can contain costs. The blog notes that several states are developing a Medicaid community-based palliative care benefit. It explains how this benefit can help provide palliative care services outside of hospice, and without a six-month time requirement of a terminal illness or a requirement to no longer receive curative care. Thus, this benefit can reimburse for interdisciplinary palliative care teams to support individuals with serious illness throughout the continuum of care and not only at end of life.
States that have developed legislation and/or regulations around the development of a Medicaid palliative care benefit include California, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and Colorado.
Read the blog.
Go to NASHP's Palliative Care Resource Hub.
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