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Friday, November 16, 2018

Feds might let Medicaid pay for housing and food

The federal-state Medicaid program may soon allow hospitals and health systems to pay directly for housing, healthy food and other solutions that help patients get healthy, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Wednesday.

In a speech, Azar noted that HHS spends more than $1 trillion a year on health care for seniors and the poor through Medicaid and Medicare. Helping patients find more stable housing or nutritious food would not only benefit them but could lower soaring federal spending, he said.

"We believe we could spend less money on health care—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, Paul Barr and Virgil Dickson report for Modern Healthcare.

Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard Tyson told Modern Healthcare that 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 said.

Azar's idea isn't totally new, Barr and Dickson report: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 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 paying rent outright.

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