Making Public Health Insurance Programs Work Better: Partnering with The New York State Department of Health To Reform Medicaid

This NYHealth special report is part of an NYHealth authorization that funded a series of quick-strike analyses to help the New York State Department of Health’s (NYSDOH’s) Office of Health Insurance Programs find ways to streamline and expand its public health insurance programs.

The technical experts who performed these analyses resided outside NYSDOH and, in some cases, outside New York State. The initiative sought to provide program officials with practical, actionable, and timely information to enable wise programming and implementation decisions and policy changes. Further, NYHealth hoped that the authorization would create a partnership between the Foundation and the administrators of the Medicaid program, but wanted to avoid funding projects that were substitutes for what the State government should do, could do, or should fund with its own resources.

The seven grants funded under this initiative addressed a range of issues affecting New York State’s Medicaid program:

• The Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University Health Policy Institute: Eligibility Simplification Project for New York State Department of Health
• Lake Research Partners: Insight into How to Reduce Churning in New York’s Medicaid Program
• Manatt Health Solutions: Streamlining Medicaid Spend Down
• The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, The State University of New York: Increasing Health Care Policy Research and Analysis Capability in New York State
• New York University, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service: Reimbursement Reform and Cost Management Project
• PMB Healthcare Consulting: Developing a Telephone Renewal System for New York State Public Health Insurance Programs
• Spitfire Strategies: Strategic Development and Implementation Support for Children’s Coverage Enrollment Drives