• Flurry of activity powers Medicaid transformation
• Medicaid waiver Q&A
• Adjustments made to Medicare co-pay policy
• Private companies enlisted to administer Medicaid ride program
• Report analyzes Medicaid’s potentially preventable readmissions
• PERM review back in Texas
• HHSC, pharmacists team up to help Medicaid patients
• Briefs

Flurry of activity powers Medicaid transformation

To say the past nine months have been busy for HHSC’s Medicaid/CHIP Division is something of an understatement.

Since last June, HHSC has conducted an ambitious list of activities — everything from reworking the Medicaid ID to expanding Medicaid managed care statewide — all designed to transform and improve Medicaid service delivery in Texas.

[More about Medicaid transformation]

Medicaid waiver Q&A

Statewide expansion of managed care and all that the process entails is at the center of a larger effort to transform the way Medicaid services are delivered and paid for in Texas.

[More about Medicaid waiver]

Adjustments made to Medicare co-pay policy

HHSC is taking steps to exempt some providers from taking cuts in what Medicaid will pay for Medicare services they provide.

[More about Medicare co-pay policy]

Private companies enlisted to administer Medicaid ride program

People in the two most populous areas of the state who rely on HHSC for rides to and from their health care appointments soon will get to know new transportation providers.

[More about Medicaid ride program]

Report analyzes Medicaid’s potentially preventable readmissions

Texas Medicaid could save more than $10 million a year if the number of potentially preventable hospital readmissions among the Medicaid population were reduced by 10 percent. That’s one of the findings in a report available on the HHSC website that provides data on the volume and rate of potentially preventable readmissions in hospitals that served Texans with Medicaid in 2010.

[More about Medicaid preventable readmissions]

PERM review back in Texas

Once again this year, Texas and its Medicaid and CHIP providers are participating in the Payment Error Rate Measurement (PERM), a federal exercise for measuring the accuracy of payments CHIP and Medicaid pay for health care services.

[More about PERM]

HHSC, pharmacists team up to help Medicaid patients

HHSC is working with the Texas Pharmacy Association on a year-long pilot project to help improve the health of high-risk Medicaid patients.

[More about Medicaid patients]

Briefs

• New federal figures mean higher income limits for benefit programs
• Women’s Health Program rule triggers certification
  
• 2-1-1 report offers insight
  
• New Medicaid committees tap top talent
  
• HHSC advisory committee seeks member
  
• Meetings, public hearings, workshops and events