Healthy Families Garrett County Participates in Pilot Program

By Diane Lee, Public Information Officer, Garrett County Health Department

Effective in January 2022, Maryland Medicaid expanded coverage to include evidence-based home visiting services (HVS) for Medicaid participants. Home visitors associated with either Healthy Families America (HFA) or Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) will be reimbursed for providing supportive services for pregnant individuals during pregnancy and childbirth, as well as support for both parents and the child after birth up to age 2.

This change was made possible partly by the data collected from a pilot program coordinated by Maryland Department of Health (MDH) with agencies in Garrett and Harford Counties in Fiscal Years 2019 through 2022.

The Healthy Families Garrett County participated in the Evidence-Based Home Visiting Services for High-Risk Pregnant Women & Children up to Age 2 (HVS) Pilot Program, providing services from July 1, 2018, through July 1, 2022.

The Pilot program proved that the target group experienced improved health outcomes for both the birthing parents and the infants. 

Since the completion of the pilot program, Healthy Families Garrett County has contracted with Maryland Physician’s Care and is working to contract with several other MCOs for the services they provide through the HVS. 

“Until Medicaid included home visiting in their list of billable services, we were not able to get reimbursed for any of our home visits to Medicaid clients,” said Maria Friend, Director of Early Care Programs at the health department. “The pilot project was a lot of work because of all the data that we needed to collect, but it was worth it to generate reimbursements from Medicaid for home visit services across the state.”

Healthy Families Garrett County is a program of the Local Management Board. Additional funding for this pilot project was from the Maryland Department of Health.

Cutline: Healthy Families Home Visiting Services promotes positive parent-child interaction. Pictured above are Diana Hernandez-Menjivar and her child Kendrick reading a book together as Home Visitor Missy Skiles looks on.