Support for this issue brief was provided by the State Health and Value Strategies program, a grantee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.

On January 26, 2023, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) approved California’s request to amend the California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) Section 1115 demonstration. A centerpiece of the amendment is approval for California Medicaid (Medi-Cal) to provide a targeted set of Medicaid services to youth and adults in state prisons, county jails and youth correctional facilities for up to 90 days prior to release.

By providing re-entry services to Medicaid-enrolled individuals who are incarcerated, California aims to build a bridge to community-based care for justice-involved enrollees, offering them services to stabilize their physical and behavioral health conditions and establishing, prior to release, a re-entry plan for their community-based care.

In an expert perspective prepared for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State Health and Value Strategies program, Manatt Health examines the features of the justice-involved re-entry initiative in California’s approved Section 1115 demonstration and discusses implications of this approval for other states.

To read the full expert perspective, click here.