MDHHS pilots enhanced Maternal Infant Health Program, seeks to provide enhanced home visiting service for Michigan families
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 18, 2021
CONTACT: Chelsea Wuth, 517-241-2112, WuthC@michigan.gov
MDHHS pilots enhanced Maternal Infant Health Program, seeks to provide enhanced home visiting service for Michigan families
LANSING, Mich. – The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) is slated to begin piloting an alternate payment model for providers of the Maternal Infant Health Program (MIHP), the state’s largest evidence-based home visiting program in May. This important effort to provide enhanced home visiting service for pregnant and parenting families is the result of Governor Whitmer’s Healthy Moms Healthy Babies initiative.
The goal of this pilot is to provide participating MIHP agencies with additional tools to help connect families to community-based resources. Evaluating the effectiveness of this payment system will be an important step towards ensuring that families receive home visiting services at a degree that corresponds to their level of need, and to improving the overall health and well-being of infants and families in Michigan.
“MDHHS is committed to investing in home visiting services tailored to the needs identified by the families we serve,” said Elizabeth Hertel, MDHHS director. “Piloting MIHP payment enhancements is an important step forward for this Michigan created home visiting program.”
MDHHS and the University of Michigan Youth Policy Lab have identified social determinants of health, such as housing stability, food security, educational opportunity, employment, transportation, treatment for mental health challenges and parenting support, as key outcomes for this pilot project.
Michigan’s home visiting programs provide valuable services to families in Michigan and leverage federal funding. For families struggling with substance use, MDHHS can create new home visiting slots in the following programs: Parents as Teachers, Healthy Families America and Nurse-Family Partnership. By directing families to these proven programs, MDHHS can improve family outcomes while leveraging available federal IV-E matching funds. In addition, home visiting can help partner these families with recovery programs to ensure that they have the necessary supportive services.
The Maternal Infant Health Program is a home visiting program that provides support and care coordination for pregnant individuals and infants covered by Medicaid, through a statewide network of public and private agencies. Services are provided by registered nurses, licensed social workers and other health professionals as needed, and are intended to supplement regular prenatal/infant care. This statewide program serves more than 15,000 Medicaid-eligible pregnant individuals and 20,000 infants annually.
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