Recently, Yara A. Halasa-Rappel, PhD, served as lead author of an article in Health Affairs Forefront titled “Building and Sustaining Safety-Net Workforce Capacity.” Co-authors included Diana M. Hernandez, MPH, of ForHealth Consulting’s research and evaluation team; former ForHealth Consulting colleagues Carolyn Brown-Kaiser, MPH, and Ying Wang, PhD; and Matthew Alcusky, PhD, of UMass Chan Medical School, among others.
The article examines how the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) decision to disallow 1115 waiver funding for workforce initiatives could make it more difficult for states to recruit and retain safety-net clinicians. It calls for increased state funding and proposes a point system to prioritize facilities with the greatest workforce needs, as well as clinicians with foreign language and other specialized skills.