Innovation is slow in health and human services. There is a much-noted 17-year lag in innovation adoption in health care – meaning it takes 17 years for a proven new innovation (e.g., an evidence-based practice, a medication, a technology) to reach half the consumers for whom it is most appropriate (see From Concept To Scale and The Answer Is 17 Years, What Is The Question: Understanding Time Lags In Translational Research). The reasons are many – regulatory requirements, reimbursement conflicts, clinical training, and delivery system models, to name just a few.

For Medicaid, new regulatory requirements may make that path to innovation a bit longer. In reshaping its policy and oversight, the Centers…