New York’s Medicaid program provides physical health, behavioral health, and long-term services and supports to over five million individuals. The majority of Medicaid enrollees require only primary care services, but some have complex care needs. Appropriately accessing and managing the care and services they use, through improved care coordination and service integration, is essential in improving health outcomes for this population and controlling future health care costs. New York State is implementing a health home care management model to more comprehensively address the complex care needs of these individuals.

In partnership with the New York State Department of Health and the New York State Health Foundation, CHCS facilitated the Health Homes Learning Collaborative, which included 34 health home provider organizations and their downstream partners from across the state, to identify and share best practices in health home design and implementation. Through in-person meetings and webinars, the learning collaborative provided a forum to help guide implementation efforts and inform state policy decisions around this significant delivery system reform effort.

The New York State Health Homes Learning Collaborative built on CHCS’ success in the earlier Chronic Illness Demonstration Project Learning Collaborative, which identified critical elements of successful care management programs for high-need beneficiaries, and in doing so, helped shape New York’s current health home strategy.