California Medicaid Adds Coverage Of Asthma Preventive Services

On August 10, 2022, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) approved a California Medicaid state plan amendment (SPA 22-0003) to add asthma preventive services as a covered benefit, with an effective date of July 1, 2022. This new benefit authorizes both unlicensed asthma preventive service workers and licensed professionals to provide asthma education and home assessments. The SPA details the supervision needed for unlicensed workers to deliver asthma preventive services.

Asthma preventive services include evidence-based asthma self-management education and asthma trigger assessments, consistent with the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) Guidelines for . . .