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Medi-Cal expands to cover non-medical services and community resources
“California is breaking ground for the rest of the country through what it's doing to transform Medi-Cal services,” said Jenna LaPlante, Senior Director of Care Management Programs for Institute on Aging.
The Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) continues to reshape Medi-Cal— California’s version of the federal Medicaid system that provides health insurance to Americans with low incomes.
The DHCS has expanded several programs to enhance the social determinants of healthcare and support, including medically tailored meals, transportation to and from appointments, in-home care, home accessibility modifications, and long-term care transition assistance. It now has a new novel feature.
Medi-Cal health insurance can help with the first month's rent.
CalAIM, California is reimagining medical coverage by marrying health care and housing. Certain high-risk and low-income Medi-Cal recipients can use their insurance plans for more than doctor’s visits and hospital stays — they can get help finding affordable or subsidized housing, cash for housing deposits, help preventing an eviction, and more.
Medi-Cal could help the 1.8 million homeless in California. Many of those people are sick.
“Working with their doctors, their social workers, we can get them housed quicker than before. The process is very long without that Medi-Cal connection. But now that the connection is there, I'm seeing the individuals receive services faster,” said Carrie Madden, program director at Aging and Disability Resource Connection of Central and South.
The mission of the South Central Los Angeles Emerging Aging Disability Resource Connection (SCLA ADRC) is to help the Senior and Disability Communities easily negotiate the complex network of public and private, social, medical, transportation and other services.
“I will share with you the story of one client referred through Molina Care to us,” said Lily Sanchez program director and a case manager at CALIF (Communities Actively Living Independent and Free), at the briefing.
“One of the social workers contacted our benefits department to refer to us a person at high risk of entering a nursing home. Through our services we were able to prevent that. With us he had advocates to do the paperwork for him. We were able to provide the services that the social worker at the HMO, the managed care provider, could not. They managed the medical part, we managed the social part and because of that coordination of care this gentleman is currently housed. He has in-home support services. He has food that will nurture him and give him strength in order for him to stop utilizing the emergency room as highly as he was before he had all these services in place.”
There are 14 new benefits that insurance plans can offer patients under CalAIM, ranging from housing services and assistance securing healthy food to help removing mold and other asthma triggers from their home. Insurance plans pick which options to offer, with the goal of eventually scaling up to all 14.
The governor’s budget made a provision for the expenditure. The 2022‑23 budget package included $1 billion General Fund in 2022‑23 and $500 million General Fund in 2023‑24 for grants to local entities to develop transitional housing for individuals experiencing homelessness who also have serious behavioral health conditions. Under the Governor’s budget, Medi‑Cal General Fund spending would be $38.7 billion. (The Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO)
“California is breaking ground for the rest of the country through what it's doing to transform Medi-Cal services,” said Jenna LaPlante, Senior Director of Care Management Programs for Institute on Aging. “Here in California we are always at the forefront of innovation. This recent expansion to really use these Medi-Cal dollars for social determinants of health is just incredibly novel. I don't see anywhere else other than California that Medi-Cal dollars are being used for first month’s rent and security deposits,” said LaPlante, a panelist at the Ethnic Media Services briefing on July 10, 2024.
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