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Medicaid and CHIP (MAC) Learning Collaboratives

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) established the Medicaid and CHIP Learning Collaboratives (MAC Collaboratives) to achieve high-performing state health coverage programs, a goal that requires a robust working relationship between federal and state partners.

Learning Collaborative Focus Areas

Five collaborative workgroups, each consisting of six to eight states plus federal partners and national experts, will address topics that are critical for establishing a solid health insurance infrastructure:

  1. Early Innovators in Information Technology: Provide a forum for EI states to explore key issues they face in launching exchanges while creating various tools and artifacts to share with all states seeking to establish exchanges.
  2. Expanding Coverage: Enable states to understand new federal rules and effectively design eligibility and enrollment policies and procedures as well as benefit structures to fulfill requirements.
  3. Data Analytics: Encourage states to consider the most effective approaches for performance measurement and data analytics to support program operations.
  4. Promoting Efficient and Effective IT Practices: Enable states to design and efficiently develop IT infrastructure that supports high performing Medicaid programs, reducing the total cost of ownership, project risk, and cycle time for new products and capabilities while improving business results.
  5. Value-Based Purchasing: Focus on building and financing the next generation of: (1) enhanced primary care case management and fee-for-service models; and (2) managed care organization contracting models.

The five MAC Collaboratives, which began between December 2011 and February 2012, will meet regularly in 2012 to develop new solutions for advancing high-performing state health coverage programs.  By developing new strategies, testing ideas and collaboratively crafting solutions in a shared learning environment, these learning collaboratives will generate practical and actionable results that will be disseminated nationally.

Learning Collaborative Team

The MAC Collaboratives activities are coordinated by Mathematica Policy Research, the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS), and Manatt Health Solutions, with additional assistance from external experts and in close association with CMS. Donna Cohen Ross, Senior Policy Advisor at the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services, is the CMS Project Lead for this national collaborative effort.

Informational Webinar

On January 5, 2012, the MAC Collaboratives Team hosted a webinar to provide an overview of the initiative, describe the topics to be addressed in each collaborative, and identify the types of tools and products that the collaboratives will generate and disseminate.

For Information

For additional information, contact Dianne Hasselman, Director of Quality and Equality at the Center for Health Care Strategies, at dhasselman@chcs.org.