Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services has a new strategic plan for 2019 through 2022.
While DHS’s area of endeavor is broad and goes beyond health care, Medicaid is an important aspect of its work and that importance is reflected in the plan, which includes descriptions of DHS’s ambitions in the following areas:
- Provide every child with a strong foundation for physical and behavioral well-being
- Bend the health care cost curve
- Drive innovative whole-person care
- Holistically assess needs and connect to resources
- Address the social determinants of health
- Expand health care beyond the doctor’s office and into the places people live, work, and play
- Coordinate physical health care, behavioral health care, and long-term services and supports
- Promote health equity
- Lead the health care system toward value-based purchasing coordinated across payers
- Serve more people in the community
- Enhance access to health care and services that help Pennsylvanians lead healthy, productive lives
- Coordinate services seamlessly across programs and agencies
- Expand services and supports for individuals with mental illness
- Expand services and supports for individuals with substance use disorder
Learn more about what Pennsylvania has in mind for its Medicaid program in the coming years, and for the Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals that serve so many participants in that program, by reading DHS’s new strategic plan for 2019 through 2022.