Using Medicaid Levers to Support Healthcare Partnerships with Community-Based Organizations

With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Partnership for Healthy Outcomes brought together Nonprofit Finance Fund, the Center for Health Care Strategies, and the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities to capture and share insights for partnerships between healthcare organizations and CBOs, particularly those that serve low-income and/or vulnerable populations. This fact sheet outlines strategies to help state Medicaid officials encourage partnerships between CBOs and healthcare organizations. States can provide: (1) financial support to build and sustain program capacity; (2) assistance in identifying metrics for evaluation; (3) incentives to providers to address SDOH; and (4) use of policy levers, including value-based contracts, MCO regulations, and state plan amendments, to support partnership efforts.