The Department of Health and Human Services announced a new funding opportunity of up to $157 million to test whether screening beneficiaries for health-related social needs and associated referrals to and navigation of community-based services will improve quality and affordability in Medicare and Medicaid.
The five-year program, called the Accountable Health Communities (AHC) Model, is a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center model to focus on the health-related social needs of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, including building alignment between clinical and community-based services at the local level.
The Accountable Health Communities Model will support up to 44 bridge organizations, through cooperative agreements, which will deploy a common, comprehensive screening assessment for health-related social needs among all Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries accessing care at participating clinical delivery sites. The model will test three scalable approaches to addressing health-related social needs and linking clinical and community services – community referral, community service navigation, and community service alignment.
Please save the dates for webinars on the AHC Model application process:
- Thursday, January 21, 2016 from 2:00 – 3:30pm EST | Registration is now open
- Wednesday, January 27, 2016 from 3:00 – 4:30pm EST | Registration is now open
For more information on the AHC Model and upcoming webinars, please visit the Accountable Health Communities Model web page.