WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government will allow Medicaid dollars to treat some people in prisons, jails or juvenile detention centers for the primary time ever, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Thursday.
CMS will allow California inmates to access limited services, including substance use treatment and mental health diagnoses, 90 days before being released. Since Medicaid was established, federal law has prohibited Medicaid money from getting used for people who find themselves in custody, with inmates accessing their health care coverage suspended.
The move will provide more stability for inmates and juvenile detainees as they exit institutions and reenter the surface world, CMS administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said Thursday.
She said the change will allow the state to “make unprecedented advancements for incarcerated individuals who’ve long been underserved.”
Not less than 10 other states have asked CMS for exemptions to make use of Medicaid dollars to treat inmates before they’re being released. California may very well be a model for those states, especially because the program is recent territory for Medicaid and is anticipated to be a large undertaking, said Vikki Wachino, who oversees the Health and Reentry Project on the Commonwealth Fund, a personal foundation based in Latest York.
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California state officials said Thursday that they hope some inmates will begin accessing services through Medicaid starting in 2024. Incarcerated people might be screened and assessed for eligibility to access the state’s Medicaid program. If eligible, case employees will help them develop a care plan for reentry.
It’ll take no less than two years to roll out this system in all of the state’s prisons, said Jacey Cooper, the state’s Medicaid director.
Tens of millions of individuals are expected to be affected, with California releasing nearly half 1,000,000 inmates from state prisons or county jails every yr and roughly 80% of those people qualifying for Medicaid.
People who find themselves leaving prison, jail or juvenile detention often do not know where to begin with getting medical care, Wachino said.
“Immediately, there’s an infinite barrier to care when people leave prison and jail,” Wachino said. “As , over and over once they’re released, they’ve been left to fend for themselves, with very, only a few supports.”
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