Montana’s health department says it’s moving forward with plans to reimburse trained, non-medical maternal health professionals called “doulas” through Medicaid. MTPR’s Austin Amestoy sat down with KFF Health News reporter Katheryn Houghton to get the update.
Austin Amestoy: When we last had you on, the state health department had told you it would not reimburse doulas through Medicaid due to budget pressures, even though lawmakers had called for that service last year. It's now reversed course?
Katheryn Houghton: Yeah, so when I first reported on this, the state said that it would not be moving forward with the program at this time. Now state officials said they hadn't actually made a final decision to scrap the payments and they're proceeding as planned.
Austin Amestoy: So the state is still expecting federal cuts to Medicaid, though. So what changed from your first report to now?
Katheryn Houghton: So state officials haven't answered what actually changed. I spoke with state Sen. Cora Newman who sponsored last year's legislation and she said she learned about the program stalling through the recent reporting on this and after that she and other advocates just began calling the health department. And they were basically making the case for this as a low-cost critical service. The senator said that after about a week of that she got word that the state was moving ahead after all.
Austin Amestoy: So are doulas now guaranteed to be reimbursed through Medicaid?
Katheryn Houghton: Good question. So right now the state is asking for federal approval to use Medicaid to pay for doulas and that happens really whenever a state opts into a service that's not automatically part of Medicaid. So that approval is likely. Twenty-five states already do this. But when I asked state health department spokesperson Jon Ebelt repeatedly whether this step means that that funding is guaranteed he never responded to those calls or emails.
Austin Amestoy: Katheryn Houghton with KFF Health News. Katheryn, thank you for being here.
Katheryn Houghton: Thanks so much for the time.
