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HHS Awards $40M to States
The Department of Health and Human Services has awarded $40 million in grants to help states find and enroll children who are uninsured but eligible for either Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The grants were paid to 69 applicants in 41 states and the District of Columbia whose outreach, enrollment, and retention efforts will target areas where many such children are believed to live, particularly in underserved populations. For example, HHS said, one-fifth of the projects will target Hispanic children, with an emphasis on teenagers, and more than 10% of the projects will focus on homeless children. Most grantees work through community groups, HHS said. For instance, church volunteers in Missouri will go door to door to locate potentially eligible children and then help their families apply for the health coverage.
CMS Clarifies CHIP Dental Coverage
States may provide dental services for children covered by CHIP either by creating their own benefits package or by selecting one of three standard coverage plans, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a memo. The document was intended to guide states implementing the new requirement to provide dental coverage to all CHIP-enrolled children, which was included in the CHIP reauthorization approved by Congress and signed by the president earlier this year. CMS told the states that they must cover medically necessary orthodontia services and that they may provide supplemental dental-only coverage to low-income children who have private health insurance but inadequate or no dental coverage.
NIH Awards $65M in Autism Grants
The National Institutes of Health has chosen 50 autism research projects to share $65 million in grants from the stimulus act passed last spring. The grants are part of the largest funding opportunity for research on autism spectrum disorders ever, according to NIH, and will address short-term research objectives detailed in the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee's strategic plan for such research. “These studies currently hold the best promise of revealing what causes autism, how it might be prevented, what treatments are effective, and how service needs change across the lifespan—questions noted in the IACC strategic plan as critically important to improving the lives of people with [autism spectrum disorder] and their families,” Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health and IACC chair, said in a statement.
IOM Pushes School Lunch Changes
School lunches and breakfasts need a nutritional makeover to increase fruits and vegetables, set caloric levels, and reduce saturated fat and salt, according to the Institute of Medicine. The IOM made the recommendations in a new report for the Department of Agriculture. That agency is expected to use the findings to write new regulations on school meals. Specifically, the IOM said, school meals should include two servings per day of fruits and vegetables, with a wide variety provided each week. Half of all grains and breads should be “whole grain rich,” the report said, and all milk should be fat free or low fat. In fact, students should be required to choose a fruit at breakfast and either a fruit or a vegetable at lunch if their meals are to be paid for by the program, the IOM said. However, the nutrition-advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest said that the IOM did not go far enough. It also should have recommended limits on sugars in school meals, the group said.
Site Details Newborn Screening
The National Library of Medicine has launched a Web site intended to promote standards in electronically recording and transmitting the results of newborn screening tests. The objectives, said the NLM, are to speed the delivery of newborn screening reports, improve care for infants with positive test results, enable the use and comparison of data from different laboratories, and support the development of strategies for improving the newborn screening process. The Web site includes standardized codes and terminology for newborn tests and the conditions they target. These include all the core and secondary conditions that the Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children recommends for screening plus other conditions and markers that one or more states recommend. The Web site is
http://newbornscreeningcodes.nlm.nih.gov
Practice Revenues Decline
Medical practice revenues fell in 2008, possibly because of declining patient volumes and payments from people in financial hardship, according to the Medical Group Management Association. Medical practices responded by trimming overhead costs more than 1%, but that wasn't enough to offset shrinking revenues, the MGMA found in its 2009 practice cost survey. Multispecialty group practices saw a 1.9% decline in total medical revenue last year from 2008, with substantial drops in both the number of procedures and the number of patients.