The Department of Health and Human Service is expanding access to home- and community-based services to five states and territories through $25 million in planning grants. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Money Follows the Person demonstration program is awarding the additional funding.
“We’re putting the full weight of this agency behind solutions that can meet people where they are and help get them to where they want to be when it comes to health care,” CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said in a statement Monday. “Money Follows the Person has a proven track record of helping seniors and people with disabilities transition safely from institutional care to their own homes and communities. Letting ‘money follow the person’ is key to those successes, and to the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to affordable, accessible, person-centered care.”
HHS is making awards of up to $5 million to Illinois, Kansas, New Hampshire, American Samoa and Puerto Rico. This is the first time MFP grants have been made to territories outside the 50 states.
The money is to be used to support early planning for MFP programs, including partnerships with community stakeholders, system assessments to better understand how HCBS can support local residents, development of community transition programs and the recruitment of HCBS providers, as well as technical experts.
A recent report found HCBS programs for the elderly have been expanding over the past two decades. MFP is a Medicaid program that supports state efforts to rebalance long-term care services and supports to help individuals have a choice in where they live and how they receive services. The program began in 2008 and has helped states transition more than 107,000 people to community living.
