Michigan wants Medicaid work requirement or it will end expansion

Michigan is the latest state asking the CMS to allow it to impose a work requirement on its Medicaid population. If the agency denies the request, the state said it would end its Medicaid expansion program.

The state wants to begin work requirements starting Jan. 1, 2020. Beneficiaries ages 19-62 would have to work or engage in specified educational, job training or community service activities for at least 80 hours a month to remain covered unless they qualify for an exemption.

Michigan’s Medicaid expansion program covers 655,000 people. Exempt individuals would include caretakers of young children in their family, the disabled and those incarcerated within the last six months.

Former VA chief Shulkin to lead innovation at Sanford

Former Veterans Affairs Secretary Dr. David Shulkin will assume the role of chief innovation officer at Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Sanford Health.

In March, President Donald Trump announced through Twitter that Shulkin was leaving his top post at the VA. He and Trump clashed over efforts to privatize some VA services. That effort came under fire recently after the VA’s Office of Inspector General released a report that two healthcare contractors running the federal VA Choice initiative collected more than $101 million in overpayments between 2016 and 2017.

Sanford Health currently has 44 hospitals, nearly 1,400 physicians and 28,000 employees. But it’s picking up Good Samaritan Society’s 200-plus post-acute, skilled-nursing, hospice, assisted-living, rehabilitation and home-health facilities and 19,000 employees in 24 states.

Sanford also is expanding its international presence, adding five new countries—Costa Rica, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and Vietnam— making it a total of nine.