CMS might let hospitals pay for housing through Medicaid - Entrepreneur Generations

Medicaid may soon allow hospitals and health systems to pay directly for housing, healthy food and other solutions that help patients get healthy, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.

In a speech on Wednesday, Azar noted that HHS spends more than $1 trillion annually on health care for seniors and the poor through Medicaid and Medicare. Helping a patient access more stable housing or nutritious food would not only benefit patients but could lower soaring federal spending, Paul Barr and Virgil Dickson report for Modern Healthcare.

"We believe we could spend less money on healthcare—and, most important, help Americans live healthier lives—if we did a better job of aligning federal health investments with our investments in non-healthcare needs," Azar said. He didn't give further details or say when the program would be launched.

Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard Tyson said he didn't know enough details on the plan, but speculated it could come in the form of a public-private partnership. "There's a balancing act that we all have to think about because somebody has to pay for it," Tyson told Barr and Dickson.

Azar's idea isn't totally new: CMS has experimented by allowing California, Illinois, Minnesota and New York use state funds to help Medicaid recipients find housing, fix up their homes, and learn more about tenant rights. And CMS has paid rent for Medicare recipients through a small grant-funded program that transitions people from institutions back to the community. But federal law prohibits CMS from outright paying people's rent, Barr and Dickson report.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2K7vIYN CMS might let hospitals pay for housing through Medicaid - Entrepreneur Generations

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