Medicaid 2.0 is nearly three-quarters of the way through the first phase. How far along is the work of this important initiative?

We are now 75% through the initial grant, which we received through generous support from The Nicholson Foundation. The Transformation Teams are about to wrap up their deliberations and will be delivering their recommendations to the Steering Committee in early December.

Do you expect the recent presidential election to impact the work of Medicaid 2.0?

Obviously, the recent election and future of the ACA introduce uncertainty about the ultimate size of the program. Yet the reforms that improve quality and control costs remain necessary to sustain the program over the long run and so far most of our efforts are centered on those objectives

You have met with hundreds of providers, recipients, and health care experts throughout the past year. What has been the most surprising, or eye opening, to you so far?

While there has been a tremendous investment over the last eight years to improve the quality and volume of health data, the providers that have entered into the limited value-based purchasing arrangements with payers have done so without much to base their decisions. The success of any value-based purchasing arrangement hinges on timely and reliable utilization data. One of our goals is to ensure that some level of Medicaid utilization data is available to the public for this purpose.

When will you have recommendations to provide to stakeholders?

Our report is scheduled to be released on Feb 28, 2017

If anyone wants their voice heard in this process, are they too late?

It’s not too late. The program is so large and complex that we continue to learn new things each day.  In addition, we are considering embarking on a second year of the grant that would allow us to pursue some of the key recommendations. So the more information we have the better the implementation strategy.