Health care systems are increasingly using a process known as "risk tiering" to group patients with similar degrees of need for health care and care coordination services. Families and care providers of children with chronic and complex conditions should understand the risk tiering process, as it may affect access to services these children need. This report outlines how tiering currently is being used, and makes recommendations for policy and research.
Children and youth with special needs are best served through a coordinated approach across the myriad programs and agencies whose services they need. In two new reports, Health Management Associates highlights how six programs in five states have made progress in overcoming the frustrating barriers to interagency collaboration among programs that serve these children and their families. The reports offer recommendations on how states might foster efforts to improve communication and coordination across programs and reduce fragmentation and duplication of services.
Many of the Medicare policies proposed in the federal CHRONIC Act of 2017 would benefit children and youth with special health care needs if they were adopted by state Medicaid programs.
Learning social skills is a cumulative, lifelong task that can have a profound effect on many aspects of an individual’s life. Social skills can be taught and reinforced at all ages and in numerous social settings. Greater attention to supporting the kinds of social interactions that improve relationships can contribute to individual growth and a more equitable and just society.
In May 2017, the National Health Law Program brought together stakeholders from around California to discuss potential legal interventions to improve access to mental health services for children with special health care needs. This fact sheet summarizes their recommendations for action.
Evidence shows that to create a high-quality health care system, the family perspective must be actively pursued and incorporated at all levels -- direct care, organizational design and governance, and policymaking. A new fact sheet outlines the value of family engagement and the barriers that prevent its implementation, along with recommendations for improvement.
A study from the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) offers short- medium- and long-term recommendations on how to improve access to mental health services for children with special health care needs (CSHCN) in California.
Researchers interviewed 23 national experts on children with medical complexity to better understand population health for these children. They developed five themes that characterize this group of children and their families, concluding that measuring population health for them is challenging but necessary.
The expectations placed on pediatric practices are getting out of hand, writes pediatrician Edward Schor, and he suggests that it is long past time for a major redesign of both training and practice.
