Maternal and Child Health Provisions Enacted in FY 2023 Omnibus Appropriations Package

Continuous Eligibility for Children. Effective Jan. 1, 2024 requires states to ensure that children determined eligible for Medicaid receive continuous eligibility for 12 months.

Postpartum Coverage. The legislation would permanently give states the option to provide 12 months of post-partum coverage to women. Previously states were able to exercise this coverage option, but only through 2027. Currently, 29 states and the District of Columbia have implemented this coverage extension.

CHIP Extension. The legislation extends funding for the CHIP program for an additional two years to 2029.

The legislation also funded a number of maternal and child health programs.

Behavioral Health. The legislation provides funding for several programs addressing mental illness, substance use disorder, and crisis response, including for pediatric and maternal mental health.

• Maternal Mental Health. $24 million for FY2023 to 2027 for a program to award Screening and Treatment for Maternal mental health and SUD grants to states to establish, improve, or maintain programs for screening, assessment, and treatment services for women who are postpartum, pregnant, or have given birth within the preceding 12 months, for maternal mental health and SUDs.
• Maternal Health Hotline. HHS shall maintain, by grant or contract, a national maternal mental health hotline to provide emotional support, information, brief intervention, and mental health an SUD resources to pregnant and postpartum women at risk of, or affected by, maternal mental health and SUD and to their families or household members.
• Task Force on Maternal Mental Health. HHS shall establish a Task Force on Maternal Mental Health for purposes of identifying, evaluating, and making recommendations to coordinate and improve federal activities related to addressing maternal mental health conditions.
• Children’s Mental Health. Report requested from CMS on trends in behavioral health services for Medicaid spending for children, youth, and young adolescents on behavioral health, disaggregated by race and ethnicity due to concern about increased reliance on psychotropic medications without accompanying behavioral health services, a lack of home- and community-based services options and children in Medicaid from racially/ethnically diverse backgrounds being less likely than white children to use behavioral health services.
• Children’s Mental Health. CDC is urged to establish a program that leverages existing CDC activities dedicated to adolescent mental health to improve adolescent mental wellbeing and advance equity, with a focus on culturally responsive prevention and early intervention. In collaboration with centers across CDC, HHS, the Department of Education, youth, experts, and advocates, CDC is encouraged to coordinate the development and implementation of national goals and a national strategy to improve adolescent mental wellbeing that align with the objectives outlined in Healthy People 2030.

Selected Appropriations for Maternal & Children’s Health Programs 

The bill includes $324 million, an increase of $120 million, for the Health Resources and Services Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health initiatives aimed at improving maternal health and reducing the nation’s high maternal mortality rate.

CDC

• $108 million for Safe Motherhood and Infant Health to improve the health of pregnant and postpartum women and their babies, including reducing disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes. The agreement directs CDC to use the funding increase to expand and increase support for Maternal Mortality Review Committees (MMRCs), Perinatal Quality Collaboratives (PQCs), and other programs including Sudden Unexplained Infant Death (SUID) and the Sudden Death in the Young (SOY) Case Registry.
• $23 million for Surveillance for Emerging Threats to Mothers and Babies Network (SETNET).
• $9.75 million for Hospitals Promoting Breastfeeding.
• $21 million for the Newborn Screening Quality Assurance Program and $1.25 million for the Newborn Screening/Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Diseases.

NIH

• $3 million to support research on Impact of COVID-19 on Pregnant and Lactating Women, with a focus on individuals from racial and ethnic minority groups.
• $43 million for the Implementing a Maternal Health and Pregnancy Outcomes Vision for Everyone (IMPROVE) Initiative.

HRSA

• $9.7 billion, an increase of $852 million, to develop the workforce, improve maternal and child health outcomes and support rural health access.
• $823 million, an increase of $87 million, for the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant.
• $385 million, an increase of $10 million, for Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education. 
• $5 million for Maternity Care Target Areas (MCTAs), including establishing criteria for and identifying MCTAs and collecting and publishing data on the availability and need for maternity care health services in Health Professional Shortage Areas. o $5 million for grants to educate midwives to address the national shortage of maternity care providers.
• $8 million for Certified Nurse Midwives (CNMs), to grow and diversify the maternal and perinatal health nursing workforce by increasing and diversifying the number of CNMs, with a focus on practitioners working in rural and underserved communities.
• $10 million for early Childhood Development Expert Grants to place early childhood development experts in pediatric settings.
• $7 million to expand support for a maternal mental health hotline.
• $10 million for minority-serving institutions to study health disparities in maternal health outcomes.
• $55 million for State Maternal Health Innovation Grants.
• $15 million for Healthy Start grantees to support nurse practitioners, certified 17 nurse midwives, physician assistants, and other maternal-child advanced practice health professionals within all program sites nationwide.
• $15.3 million for Alliance for Innovation in Maternal Health Safety Bundles.
• $10 million for Pregnancy Medical Home Demonstration to incentivize maternal health care providers to provide integral health care services to pregnant women and new mothers.
• $8 million for Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies (RMOMS).

To learn about other provisions that affect hospitals and health systems, view the full AHA summary of the omnibus appropriations bill.