Medicaid agencies make daily decisions about how to spend program dollars and can use this opportunity to guide payment strategies to advance health equity. State agencies can involve a variety of stakeholders, including people served by Medicaid, to develop a comprehensive approach to guide spending and payment decisions focused on health equity.

This checklist of eight key questions can help state purchasers and other payers develop a robust payment and spending strategy focused on advancing health equity. Each question includes concrete state examples for adopting health equity-focused payment methods.

The brief, authored by the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS), is a product of Advancing Health Equity, a national initiative supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that is working with states to pursue payment innovations that support health equity. The initiative is led by the University of Chicago in partnership with CHCS and the Institute for Medicaid Innovation.

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In this episode of Advancing Health Equity’s Small Bytes series, Anne Smithey, CHCS Program Officer and lead author on Developing a Payment and Spending Strategy to Advance Health Equity, shares why money matters in Medicaid reform and how these reforms can help reduce inequities in care delivery.