Medicaid plays a vital role in supporting the health and well-being of millions of mothers and children by providing affordable health care coverage that includes a comprehensive set of high-quality services, such as preventive care like screenings and immunizations, chronic disease management, family planning services, well-child visits, and Home- and Community-Based Services.
The Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs (AMCHP), a Modern Medicaid Alliance partner, supports and advocates for Medicaid services for women and children, including children with special health care needs. AMCHP serves as a national partner, resource, and advocate for public health leaders who work to advance the health of women, children, and families. The organization plans targeted programs, advocates for national legislation, and convenes stakeholders to enhance the health of families and communities nationwide.
AMCHP’s Innovation Hub is an online platform that provides maternal and child health (MCH) professionals with tools and resources to explore, build, and share successful and effective practices from the MCH field. Within the Hub, the MCH Innovations Database includes several practices and policies grounded in evidence that have a nexus to Medicaid. For example, Prenatal Plus is a Medicaid-funded program in Colorado that provides care coordination, nutrition, and mental health counseling to Medicaid-eligible pregnant women who are at a higher risk for delivering low birthweight infants.
The Hub’s Implementation Toolkits provide evidence-based practices, reports, publications, and resources to MCH professionals for program planning specific to each Title V Maternal and Child Health Block Grant National Performance Measure (NPM). Many of the toolkits make connections to the role Medicaid plays in supporting maternal and child health. For example, AMCHP’s toolkit for NPM 3, “Risk-Appropriate Perinatal Care,” includes “Partnership with/Expansion of Medicaid” as one of the critical strategic approaches necessary to achieve this measure. The toolkit highlights the role Medicaid plays in ensuring mothers and babies placed at risk receive the care they need and underscores the positive impact that expanding Medicaid has on the health of reproductive-age women. Similarly, the toolkit for NPM 15, “Continuous and Adequate Insurance,” highlights the key role that Medicaid plays in children’s health insurance coverage.
AMCHP also leverages its Pulse newsletter, issue briefs, learning modules, blogs, and other publications to highlight the strong connections between Medicaid and maternal and child health. Recent publications include:
- Several resources on federal and state efforts to extend Medicaid coverage beyond 60 days postpartum, including:
- A blog post for the Maternal Health Learning & Innovation Center, “Round-up on Postpartum Medicaid Extension Activity & Resources,” which serves as a primer for this active policy space;
- A state advocacy toolkit, “Making the Case for Extending Medicaid Coverage Beyond 60 Days Postpartum,” developed in partnership with several members of the Equitable Maternal Health Coalition; and
- A legislative tracker, the Maternal Health Bill Tracker, which compiles key information on pending federal legislation to improve maternal health and includes a function that allows users to sort bills by those that would extend postpartum Medicaid coverage;
- A fact sheet developed in partnership with the Georgia Health Policy Center, “Medicaid Options for States During COVID-19: Considerations for Maternal and Child Health,” which describes Medicaid waivers and state plan amendments that states have pursued to address emergent needs during the COVID pandemic;
- An article in Pulse, “Medicaid Expansion Offers Opportunities for Improving Maternal and Child Health,” which showcases the growing evidence that Medicaid expansion can bridge gaps in women’s health care, advance health equity, and improve maternal health;
- A case study, “Collaborations Between State Title V Maternal and Child Health Programs and Medicaid,” that describes strategies to partner effectively across state agencies to achieve shared goals to improve maternal and child health; and
- Several resources on improving systems of care for Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs (CYSHCN), including:
- A tip sheet, “Tips for Medicaid on Implementing the National Standards,” with strategies and case studies for how Medicaid programs can successfully implement the National Standards for Systems of Care for CYSHCN; and
- An interactive learning module, “Use of Medicaid Data and Quality Measures in Improving Systems of Care for CYSHCN.”
For more information on AMCHP’s policy and advocacy efforts, click this link.
You can also check out the Modern Medicaid Alliance’s Medicaid and Maternal Health Toolkit.