The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has posted a comprehensive plan outlining broad HHS goals, objectives, and implementation strategies for the period 2010-2015. HHS objectives on transforming health care focus on extending affordable care to the uninsured, improving health care quality and safety, promoting adoption and meaningful use of health information technology, and improving the accessibility and quality of supportive services for older adults and individuals with disabilities. HHS’s top priority on extending affordable care to the uninsured is working with states to help implement state-based health insurance purchasing exchanges that will increase purchasing power, reduce administrative expenses, and foster competition among private insurance plans to make health care premiums more affordable. HHS seeks public comments on its plan by August 14.
About Tom Entrikin
A former policy specialist with the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration (now Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)), Tom Entrikin has vast experience providing technical assistance to states on Medicaid eligibility, coverage, and reimbursement; provider certification and enrollment; program integrity; recovery of third party liabilities; Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) performance specifications and operations; interagency agreements; contracts with managed care organizations; and Medicaid waiver programs. Since joining PCG in 1992, Tom has assisted in the design, development, and implementation of revenue projects for school-based health services; hospital-based and municipal projects for pregnant women, infants, and children; state services offered through youth services, child welfare, mental health, substance abuse, and public health agencies; and reimbursement systems for hospitals, long term care facilities, and community-based waiver programs. He has made presentations at national conferences on Medicaid waiver programs and participated in the development of a manual on self-determination under waiver programs for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
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