CMS Approves Minnesota’s HCBS Statewide Transition Plan

Posted on February 26, 2019 by Bobbie Guidry

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) granted Minnesota final approval of its statewide transition plan to bring settings into compliance with the federal Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) settings regulations. 

In 2014, CMS published regulations in the Federal Register that changed the definition of HCBS settings for the 1915(c) and 1915(i) Medicaid HCBS waivers. The new definition considers a person’s experience and outcomes in addition to a setting’s location, geography or physical characteristics. States have until March 2022 to bring their systems into compliance with the new requirements. 

The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) is currently compiling evidentiary packages for settings presumed not to be HCBS settings to submit to CMS for their approval. DHS is also establishing a HCBS Settings Review Panel to review evidentiary packages of settings that CMS presumes are not HCBS after the public comment period but before submission to CMS. The review panel will assess packages when DHS does not believe the setting is HCBS and when public comment raises concern that the setting has institutional or isolating qualities.