The committee met to receive an overview of women’s health service in Texas from HHSC Executive Commissioner Chris Traylor and Associate Commissioner Lesley French. The committee also received public comment.
Women’s Health Services Program Update
Chris Traylor, Executive Commissioner, HHSC
Lesley French, Associate Commissioner for Women’s Health Services
- 42% of women in Texas are of child bearing age
- Only 75% of women in Texas between the ages of 18-65 have health care coverage
- 53% of Texas births are paid for by Medicaid
- 67% of Medicaid costs for hospitalized newborns come from codes related to prematurity
- The 5 current women’s health programs will be merged to form two robust programs
- Women’s health received a $240M appropriation for the coming biennium
- French described the current women’s health programs and discussed details of the programs and covered services; this information can be found in the attached slides
- HHSC is in the process of modifying the eligibility system so that clients transfer directly from Medicaid for Pregnant Women into the Texas Women’s Health Program
- HHSC is working to ensure long-acting reversible contraceptives that are on the market are available to all clients as an option
- New women’s health programs
- The Family Planning program will be reworked into a new stand-alone program
- Texas Women’s Health program and the Expanded Primary Health Care program will be combined into the new Healthy Texas Women program
- Eligibility for the program has been decided by the legislature
- Healthy Texas Women will serve women between the ages of 15-44 who are US citizens or eligible immigrants
- Minors will not be served without parental consent
- 200% FPL
- The committee will help to decide how to allocate the additional $50M the legislature appropriated for the programs
- Enrollment for the Family Planning program will remain on-site; enrollment for Healthy Texas Women will be done through TIERS as well as through auto-enrollment from Medicaid for Pregnant Women
- The committee will meet in October and will be presented with several options of benefits package structures to consider
- HHSC will begin development of RFPs for the Family Planning and Healthy Texas Women programs
- The committee will discuss options for provider training & education and client outreach and the RFP for program outreach/media will be developed
- The committee will meet in November to begin discussion of the RFPs and administrative rules for the program
- The committee will meet in December to finalize the benefits packages and the rules
- Hoping to present the Family Planning and Health Texas Women program rules to HHSC Council within the first few months of 2016
- The main decision points for the committee are administration of the programs, benefits packages for client services, Healthy Texas Women rules, Family Planning rules, and provider training and education
- All of this needs to be completed before the program launch date of July 1, 2016
- A committee member asked if expedited treatment for a partner’s STI will be part of the benefits package
- That will be a decision of the committee
- A committee member asked if the Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening program is being considered for consolidation with the Healthy Texas Women program
- No, that is not up for consideration because 75% of the funding for that program comes from federal
Public Comment
Lisa Blanc, Self
- Would like to know what will happen to women who have an abnormal pap smear or if a lump is found; the Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening program only allows for one visit per year
- Regardless of immigrant status, all women should be able to receive care
- The exclusion of abortion providers will cause problems for low income women in isolated areas; HHSC should track deaths that come from failure to receive care
Ana DeFrates, National Latino Institute for Reproductive Health
- Glad to see there will be an effort to include breast and cervical screenings in the Family Planning program
- Happy about efforts to increase access to long-acting reversible contraceptives
- Would like provider training to be culture-specific
Nicole McKinley, Parkland
- Described Parkland’s experience with the Expanded Primary Health Care program and the Texas Women’s Health program