Home Health & Hospice Week

A federal funding boost for home- and community-based services may be tangled in budget deliberations, but the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is still aiming to strengthen HCBS.

CMS has “launched a new ‘one-stop shop’ for state Medicaid agencies and stakeholders on Medicaid.gov to advance transparency and innovation for home and community-based services,” the agency says in a release. “Through this new webpage, state Medicaid agencies and stakeholders can access information about states’ plans to enhance, expand, and strengthen home and community-based services across the country using new Medicaid funding made available by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARP).”

Reminder: “The ARP provided states with a temporary 10 percentage point increase in federal Medicaid funding for certain Medicaid home and community-based services from April 1, 2021 through March 31, 2022, if they meet certain requirements,” CMS recounts.

“Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, we can support states working to expand access to home and community-based services for Medicaid beneficiaries,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra says in the release. “With the launch of this new online hub, we’re making it easy for states to exchange ideas on how best to care for their residents,” he says.

“We welcome the opportunity to work with states to expand home and community-based services to meet the needs of their communities,” says CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure in the release.

In addition to new programs such as mobile vaccination teams, “many states are … providing recruitment and retention bonuses and increasing pay for direct support professionals, as well as implementing new training programs and other strategies to strengthen the direct support workforce,” CMS notes.

See the page with state plans online at www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/home-community-based-services/guidance/strengthening-and-investing-home-and-community-based-services-for-medicaid-beneficiaries-american-rescue-plan-act-of-2021-section-9817-spending-plans-and-narratives/index.html.