Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently announced the first recipients of State Innovation Model awards.  The State Innovation Models Initiative will provide up to $300 million in awards and will offer flexibility and support to states to help them improve performance of their health systems. The broad-based projects supported by the awards will focus on individuals enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Model Testing Awards were granted to six states: Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon and Vermont. The funds from these awards will help these states test multi-payer payment reform and other state-led delivery system reforms. In addition, three states will receive Model Pre-Testing Awards and 16 states will receive Model Design Awards to further develop their proposals for comprehensive health care transformation. HHS also released a new report titled Medicaid Moving Forward, which highlights achievements that states and HHS have made to improve outcomes and reduce costs of Medicaid and CHIP through innovative reforms.

Links: State Innovation Model Awards; Medicaid Report