Demystifying Healthcare Financing for Healthy Homes Services

Project Funders: This project is made possible through the following:

Project Partners: Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University; University of Rochester Medical Center.

Project Contact: Amanda Reddy, areddy@nchh.org

Project Description: This multiyear project is working to document and demystify the landscape and opportunities surrounding healthcare financing for healthy homes services.

Year One: In year one of the project, the National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) researched and documented opportunities to pay for healthy homes services through the healthcare system. By conducting a nationwide survey to identify states where healthcare financing for lead poisoning follow-up or home-based asthma services was already in place or pending, NCHH identified specific examples where healthy homes activities are currently being financed through nonprofit hospitals and public or private insurance and described the steps involved in getting financing into place.

NCHH developed new technical briefs, a resource library for state and local agencies interested in partnering with the healthcare system to reduce housing-related illness and injury, and two reports summarizing the survey results. All of these valuable resources can be accessed from the Healthcare Financing Resource Library.

Year Two: NCHH began the process of building on the initial research and documentation work completed in Year One to improve the quality and availability of information, tools, and resources that will assist state and local agencies in exploring healthcare financing of home-based lead poisoning and asthma services. In year two, NCHH and its partners have:

  • Developed a set of detailed case studies to distill lessons learned in states with and without Medicaid reimbursement for healthy homes services, and
  • Refined and expanded the resource library to improve the quality, availability, and accessibility of materials, resources, and tools for state and local agencies and nongovernmental organizations to pursue healthcare financing of home-based lead poisoning and asthma services.

Year Three: NCHH is and its partners are well into the process of further building on the activities conducted to date to:

  • Develop additional case studies focused on further examining the experiences of states with and without Medicaid reimbursement for home-based asthma services,
  • Cultivate common themes and lessons learned across the full set of 10 case studies into an overarching summary report,
  • Continue to refine and expand the resource library, and
  • Disseminate the tools and resources developed to help state and local agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and other stakeholders pursue healthcare financing of home-based lead poisoning and asthma services.

Additional materials will be made available in the Healthcare Financing Resource Library as they are developed.