1/ #Tech #innovation is growing rapidly but state #Medicaid programs usually don't have an efficient mechanism to process benefit coverage determinations, especially when benefit categories for new tech are unclear. The following is a framework to help states Medicaid programs... https://twitter.com/Health_Affairs/status/1322223026243543041

2/ Digital therapeutics have come a long way over past decade leading to several FDA cleared/approved technologies including @Welldoc and @PropellerHealth as well as FDA breakthrough designated emerging tech with rapidly growing literature base like @AppliedVRhealth @CognoaInc

3/ Handful of state Medicaid agencies have pioneered innovative, transparent, evidence-based benefit coverage determination processes that can serve as a template for other states: @LADeptHealth @WADeptHealth @TexasHHSC @ALPublicHealth @HealthNYGov @MDHealthDept

4/ Here are characteristics of optimal technology benefit coverage determination processes based on these states' experiences:

5/ @LADeptHealth built on prior states' experiences and pioneered an elegant Turbotax-equivalent for new technology benefit coverage determination via a fully digitized version of this worksheet can be found on the Louisiana State Medicaid website: https://ldh.la.gov/index.cfm/form/153

6/ We recently advocated for Medicare to consider the DME benefit category for #digital therapeutics: https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/19/medicare-proposed-rule-breakthrough-digital-therapeutics/, but digital therapeutics can be viewed through the lens of multiple benefit categories for Medicaid and commercial @dtx_alliance

7/ What the feds can do to improve access to evidence-based cost-effective digital therapeutics: CMCS should issue an informational bulletin similar to its recent #telehealth toolkit elaborating on this research & providing a template for state Medicaid agencies @statemedicaid