Senior Director of Criminal Justice Initiatives Health and Reentry Project (HARP)
Description: For the first time, Medicaid is being authorized to cover some health services for individuals in the period just before they are released from jails and prisons. These policy changes are groundbreaking and hold potential to improve a range of health and public safety outcomes, including reducing mortality, unnecessary emergency room visits and hospitalizations, and rates of reincarceration. Implementing these changes requires unprecedented collaboration between jail officials, state Medicaid programs, and community providers. This session will provide an overview of these changes, which include statutory changes made by Congress that apply in all states and administrative changes made by a growing number of states through waivers of federal Medicaid law authorized by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), how the federal, state and local governments are implementing these changes, and their implications for providing health care services in prisons and jails.
Learning Objectives:
Participants will gain an understanding of recent federal and state policy changes allowing Medicaid to be used to cover some services in jails.
Participant will be able to describe how changes to Medicaid’s role in incarceration will affect jail health care services.
Participant will be able to describe how changes to Medicaid’s role in incarceration will affect jail operations
Participants will be able to describe three key challenges jails faces in this new environment
Participants will be able to describe three key opportunities jails can pursue in this new environment
