Sign Up to Receive PHI Alerts

STUDY: Money Follows the Person Helps Thousands Transition Back to Their Communities

February 19, 2014

By the end of June 2013, more than 35,000 Medicaid recipients had used the Money Follows the Person (MFP) demonstration program to transition from institutional settings to their own preferred home and community-based settings, a report shows.

The report, prepared by researchers from Mathematica Policy Research for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, examines MFP activity in the first half of 2013.

During the first half of 2013, MFP grantee states transitioned 4,812 program participants to home-based settings — slightly off the pace set in the second half of 2012, when 4,899 participants were transitioned, the report shows.

The MFP demonstration began in January 2008 and is scheduled to end in 2016; grantee states have until the end of fiscal year 2019 to spend all grant money.

Breakdown by State

Additionally, the report presents statistics from each of the 41 states (and Washington, DC) that have participated in MFP.

As of the end of June 2013, Texas leads all grantee states with 7,307 total MFP transitions, followed by Ohio (3,761) and Washington State (3,046).

Ohio transitioned the most new participants in the first half of 2013, with 620. Arkansas and Delaware had already met their entire 2013 goal for successful MFP transitions by the end of June 2013.

Meanwhile, 35 MFP states offered participants the option to self-direct their care. But the actual rate of self-direction within those states varied considerably. In Delaware, 96 percent of MFP participants self-directed, while in eight states, zero percent availed themselves of the option to self-direct. 

The reinstitutionalization rate for all MFP states between January and June 2013 was 6 percent.

— by Matthew Ozga

Caring for the Future

Our new policy report takes an extensive look at today's direct care workforce—in five installments.

Workforce Data Center

From wages to employment statistics, find the latest data on the direct care workforce.