Revolutionizing Healthcare: Unveiling North Carolina’s Strategies to Bridge Health Gaps Through Social Initiatives
The WNC Health Policy Initiative is pleased to share this announcement from the Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy regarding their ongoing research on North Carolina’s efforts to address health-related social needs:
“In February 2024, Duke-Margolis researchers, along with co-authors from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Cape Fear Collective, and Legal Aid of North Carolina, published a journal article in Health Affairs that summarizes lessons and insights from the design and implementation of Pilots housing services. Our objective for this study was to identify lessons learned, innovations, and actionable insights from the design and implementation of Pilots housing services to help inform the efforts of other states and federal policymakers who are working to address housing insecurity through Medicaid at scale. This article builds on our first major qualitative evaluation report on the Pilots released last year by diving deep into housing policy design and implementation. Last week, researchers from Manatt Health also published an article in Health Affairs Forefront that builds on the lessons from our article. Together, these insights can further inform the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on the implementation of their recent framework for addressing health-related social needs in Medicaid and CHIP, as well as other states and Medicaid programs interested in exploring authorities to address health-related social needs.
Duke-Margolis researchers will share more about the findings from this work at two upcoming conferences: the 2024 CMS Health Equity Conference, May 29-30 in Bethesda, MD, and the AcademyHealth 2024 Annual Research Meeting, June 29-July 2 in Baltimore, MD. We look forward to these opportunities to amplify the work being done in North Carolina through the Pilots with broad audiences.”
We’ve heard about the incredible impact the Healthy Opportunities Pilot has already had in WNC from our Impact Health panel at the 2024 WNC Legislative Caucus back in March. Especially now that NC’s Medicaid expansion roll-out is in full swing, we look forward to hearing more about this research and what the findings could mean for further improving the health outcomes of Medicaid recipients in WNC and across the nation.
Additional resources:
Check out this blog post to learn more about the WNC HOP program, how it works and why it’s important
