The committee tasked with advising the Mississippi Division of Medicaid met Friday for the first time in a year and a half.
The meeting in Jackson was a primer on Medicaid programs and provided a financial update for new members, most of whom were appointed in 2024 but have not yet participated in a meeting.
The Medicaid Advisory Committee offers expertise and opinions to the state Medicaid program about health care services. It is made up of doctors, hospital executives, managed care organization representatives and other Medicaid stakeholders.
It includes two members of the recently formed Beneficiary Advisory Council, a group of Medicaid members and their families who advise Medicaid on their experience with the program.
New federal policy seeks to heighten the role that beneficiaries play in shaping Medicaid programs and policy by mandating that members of the council serve on the Medicaid Advisory Committee. Ten percent of the group must be composed of beneficiaries or their families, a proportion that will rise in the coming years.
Both committees are mandated by the federal government to meet quarterly.
The last Medicaid Advisory Committee meeting, formerly known as the Medical Care Advisory Committee, was held on Dec. 8, 2023.
Meetings were first set back in 2024 because state leaders, who were formerly charged with selecting members, were slow to make appointments. A meeting scheduled for October was postponed after former executive director Drew Snyder announced his resignation.
Meetings were then delayed further while the agency worked to sort out a discrepancy between state law and new federal guidelines, which mandated that committee appointments be made by the executive director of Medicaid and include members of the then-unformed Beneficiary Advisory Council. The new guidelines took effect this month.
State lawmakers proposed language in several bills earlier this year during the legislative session that would have conformed state law to federal regulations. Two such bills were vetoed by the governor.
Medicaid Executive Director Cindy Bradshaw said the agency decided to “honor the language” of the vetoed bills, conforming to federal guidelines without updating state law.
The committee’s recommendations have played a crucial role in crafting state Medicaid policy in the past. In 2023, the advisory group’s recommendation contributed to the Legislature’s passage of extended Medicaid coverage for new mothers.
