Wednesday, February 5, 2025
2/5/2025
OKLAHOMA HEALTH CARE AUTHORITY: TRANSFORMING MATERNAL HEALTH (TMaH) MODEL PROJECT ABSTRACT According to America’s Health Rankings, Oklahoma ranks 47th out of 50 states, a decline over the previous year’s ranking. Oklahoma consistently ranks in bottom states for several indicators of physical and mental health and its maternal health landscape is not any better. It has maternal health access and quality of care challenges with some parts of the state being worse off than others. The state also has abysmal rates of maternal health outcomes across its 77 counties, most of which are rural. Chronic and morbid conditions like obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, hypertension, preeclampsia, and eclampsia are rampant across the state’s birthing persons. In addition, certain races and ethnicities are more adversely impacted than others, revealing deep health disparity issues. Despite the challenges, Oklahoma has been on the right path over the few years. It passed State Question 802 which expanded Medicaid to low-income adults between the ages of 19 and 64 years. This has had a positive impact on the rates of the uninsured population in the state giving healthcare access to those who historically did not have it. Furthermore, its Medicaid agency has implemented a managed care delivery system with a goal of driving positive health outcomes for beneficiaries. For maternal health, the agency has implemented doula benefits and extended coverage to 12-months post-partum for its members. In addition, during this last legislative session, Senate Bill 1739 was passed directing the Medicaid agency to promulgate rules to reimburse nationally accredited birth centers, certified professional midwives, and certified midwives. All these developments have set the stage for more meaningful work to be done to improve maternal health outcomes. Medicaid covers over half of the births in the state and thus is an important player in improving the state’s maternal health outlook. The Oklahoma Health Care Authority, the state’s Medicaid Program is proposing a substate implementation of the TMaH Model if its application is successful. Based on data like annual deliveries, concentration of birthing persons, high levels of health disparities and social services needs, it has selected eight rural counties and six urban zip codes to test the TMaH Model. Its proposed program design includes leveraging non-traditional provider types; partnering with entities across the state to drive health improvement efforts related to model goals. It plans to engage its newly contracted managed care plans, tribal, safety net providers, and community-based organizations in this effort to improve maternal outcomes for its Medicaid beneficiaries in the test region. It also plans to leverage technology such as closed loop referral platforms to accomplish some of its model goals on addressing health related social needs. The alignment between TMaH Model goals and the state’s maternal health priorities will drive positive and lasting results for communities of color which have been disproportionately affected by over the years.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).