The Fiscal Year 2023 Labor, HHS Appropriations bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee includes language to improve efforts to address SDOH:
The committee encourages CMS to continue clarify and disseminate strategies that states can implement under current Medicaid and CHIP authority, or through waivers, to address SDOH. This should include guidance on how states can encourage and incentivize managed care organizations to address SDOH through contracts.
The Committee requests a report on efforts by CMS to ensure the transparency by Medicare Advantage (MA) and Medicaid Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) in the use of data of beneficiaries in addressing SDOH, how CMS ensures that MA and MCO plans notify beneficiaries of the use of protected or consumer (social, economic, behavioral) data, and how ongoing CMS work with MA and MCOs around SDOH and the use of consumer data and protected medical information aligns with and improves health equity.
The Committee requests a briefing on the current utilization of Z codes, how HHS suggests the Z codes definitions could be updated to better track SDOH impacting underserved communities and recommendations on how to increase the utilization of Z codes. The committee also encourages HHS to update the current Z code definitions and establish a national standard to review SDOH to ensure physicians nationwide use the same tools to analyze SDOH.