Medicaid Maternal and Infant Health Initiative Briefs

Today the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published three Maternal and Infant Health Initiative (MIHI) briefs. The three issue briefs describe work during the first phase of CMS’s MIHI, designed to help states implement quality measurement and improvement projects.

Issue Briefs:

• Improving Postpartum Care: Summary of state projects from the Postpartum Care Action Learning Series and Adult Medicaid Quality Grant program: This issue brief describes the quality improvement (QI) teams in the 10 states, their aims, the interventions they tested, their results, and lessons learned. In addition, this fact sheet provides summaries of the postpartum care-related projects that four states undertook as Adult Medicaid Quality (AMQ) grantees.
• The Maternal and Infant Health Initiative Grant Program to Support Development and Testing of Medicaid Contraceptive Care Measures:  CMS MIHI grant supported development and testing of Medicaid contraceptive care measures. This analytic brief discusses the MIHI grant program, describes the contraceptive care measures developed as part of this effort, summarizes data reported by the MIHI grantees, highlights uses of the data, and identifies lessons learned.
• Improving Postpartum Care: State Projects Conducted through the Postpartum Care Action Learning Series and Adult Medicaid Quality Grant Program:  This brief outlines the lessons learned about payment strategies to improve postpartum care visit rates and summarizes the changes three states made related to paying for maternity care in order to improve postpartum care.

In 2014, CMS started MIHI, creating an expert panel charged with exploring program policy and reimbursement opportunities that could result in better care, improve birth outcomes and reduce the cost of care for mothers and infants in Medicaid and CHIP.