The California Association of Health Plans (CAHP) is hosting a seminar titled Unprecedented Investment in Home-and Community-Based Services (HCBS), an all-day event this week that will focus on federal and state investments to help seniors and people with disabilities remain in their homes and avoid institutional care. Cynthia Carmona, the Senior Director for Safety Net Initiatives at L.A. Care Health Plan, the largest publicly operated health plan in the country, will sit on a panel on the Housing and Homelessness Incentive Program (HHIP), part of the $3 billion HCBS Spending Plan announced by the California Department of Health Care Services last year.
To participate in the incentive program and be eligible for HHIP funding, Medi-Cal managed care plans (MCPs) will collaborate with local homeless Continuums of Care organizations and submit a Local Homelessness Plan. Plans that make progress in addressing homelessness and housing insecurity will be eligible for a portion of the $1.28 billion dedicated to HHIP.
Carmona will describe steps that L.A. Care took even before HHIP, including a $20 million commitment that helped house more than 300 households over a five year period. As part of state Department of Health Care Services’ California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) initiative, the health plan is implementing three housing-related Community Supports – Housing Transition/Navigation Services, Housing Tenancy and Sustaining Services and Recuperative Care. L.A. Care will be implementing two additional housing-related supports in the coming months – housing deposits in July and short-term post-hospitalization housing in January of 2023.
At the CAHP seminar, Carmona will also be discussing implementation of HHIP at L.A. Care. Applications are due to the state in June. In the meantime, L.A. Care is working in close collaboration with its plan partners, Los Angeles County, local Los Angeles housing continuums of care, and the commercial Medi-Cal plan in Los Angeles County, Health Net.
The seminar on Home and Community-Based Services will be held Wednesday, March 23, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. The topic of other panels include the intersection of the HCBS Spending Plan and CalAIM goals, enhanced care management, palliative care and workforce training and development.
You can register for the seminar here.