Reentry from a carceral setting

How to participate

To participate, interested carceral facilities will move through five key milestones over the course of the program:

1. Intent to Participate
2. Capacity Building Application
3. Readiness Assessment
4. Interim Progress Report
5. Final Progress Report

Milestone 1: Intent to Participate

A facility must submit an Intent to Participate form to HCA to complete Milestone 1. Once a facility submits this form, a portion of the capacity building funding becomes available. The Milestone 1 deadline for Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 has passed. To participate in Cohort 3, a facility must submit their Intent to Participate form by May 1, 2025. For additional information, please see the Initial requirements guidance document and the available resources section.

Milestone 2: Capacity Building Application (CBA)

To complete Milestone 2, participating carceral facilities must complete the Capacity Building Application - Attestations form and submit it to HCA. Each question in this form represents a program requirement that facilities must be able to fulfill in order to go live. HCA has implemented a rolling deadline for this milestone and aims to collaborate on a timeline that best supports a facility in meeting each of the program requirements. For support and additional information, view the Introduction to the CBA.

Additionally, the following sections of the capacity building funds budget template are a part of Milestone 2:

• Required: Capacity building funds budget (Planning & Implementation tab)
• Optional: List the providers who will use HCA’s free claims clearinghouse (Optional Provider List tab)
• Optional: Complete the IT infrastructure budget (Option IT Infrastructure tab)

For more information about meeting the program requirements listed in the CBA - Attestations form, please see the learning series materials.

Milestone 3: Readiness Assessment

As part of Milestone 3, HCA will conduct a Readiness Assessment to ensure facilities are fully prepared to launch the Reentry Initiative by a facility's indicated go-live date. Facilities are required to provide narrative responses to demonstrate how they will meet each of the program requirements listed in the CBA. Facilities must have their Readiness Assessment approved by HCA to go live and begin billing for Reentry Initiative services. Please note that HCA is still finalizing these details and will provide more information as soon as it is available.

Steps to complete Milestone 3

1. Required: Complete and sign the Readiness Assessment – coming spring 2025
2. Required: Complete the IT infrastructure budget in the capacity building funds budget template (Option IT Infrastructure tab)

Go live for Cohort 1 facilities is July 1, 2025, although HCA is offering a flexible timeline that best supports individual facilities.

Milestone 4: Interim Progress Report

There is no information available at this time.

Milestone 5: Final Progress Report

There is no information available at this time.

Available resources

General materials

• FAQ for carceral facilities (October 2024)
• Reentry Initiative overview (April 2024)
• 3 ways a carceral facility can receive Medicaid funding infographic (October 2024)
• Authorization and information sharing consent from for reentry case management (January 2025)

Learning series webinars

Date	Event	Related materials
January 8, 2025	Reentry Initiative provider enrollment	Webinar slide deck Webinar recording
January 15, 2025	Reentry Initiative MCO contracting and credentialing	Webinar slide deck Webinar recording

Cohort office hour resources

Date	Event	Related materials
December 17, 2024	Reentry Initiative 101	Webinar slide deck Webinar recording
November 21, 2024	Reentry Initiative cohort discussion	Webinar slide deck
October 15, 2024	Reentry Initiative cohort discussion	Webinar slide deck Webinar recording
September 23, 2024	Reentry Initiative cohort discussion	Webinar slide deck
July 23, 2024	Reentry Initiative cohort discussion	Webinar slide deck Webinar recording
May 13, 2024	Reentry Initiative virtual office hour	Webinar recording (part 1) Webinar recording (part 2)
April 2024	Reentry Initiative Q&A webinar	Webinar slide deck Webinar recording

News

HCA invites Washington carceral facilities to participate in MTP Reentry Initiative.

• Tribal jails invitation to participate — letter from Dr. Charissa Fotinos, HCA Medicaid and Behavioral Health Medical Director (January 2025)
• Carceral facilities invitation to participate — letter from Dr. Charissa Fotinos (April 2024)
• View press release
• View announcement

Why is this initiative important?

Through this initiative, we aim to:

• Prepare people for a successful transition and reentry into their community and help them live their healthiest life.
• Improve health outcomes and reduce recidivism (re-offense), emergency department visits, overdoses, and death.
• Support substance use disorder and recovery and target infectious diseases like Hepatitis C before a person’s release.
• Stabilize and treat other conditions before a person’s release, so they can reenter their community as healthy as possible.

What services will the initiative provide?

This initiative will support and fund the delivery of targeted prerelease services to Apple Health-eligible adults and youth in state prisons, jails, and youth carceral facilities. HCA will require participating facilities to support the first three targeted prerelease services below. The remaining four services are optional, and facilities may implement them individually.

• Case management
• Medications for alcohol and opioid use disorder
• 30-day supply of medications and medical supplies at release
• Medications during the prerelease period
• Lab and radiology
• Services by community health workers with lived experience
• Physical and behavioral clinical consultations

View our overview.

Additional information

Background on reentry legislation and MTP

• Senate Bill (SB) 6430 passed in 2016, which allowed HCA to suspend—and not terminate—Medicaid coverage for incarcerated individuals.
• In 2021, House Bill 1348 passed, which delays the suspension of an incarcerated person’s Medicaid coverage. SB 5304 also passed in 2021, which allowed HCA to seek federal funding to:
  • Provide prerelease services to a person leaving a carceral setting.
  • Maximize care coordination, so a person can transition into their community successfully and be connected to the care and services they need.
• MTP is Washington State's Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration waiver, which is an agreement between the Health Care Authority (HCA) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
  • In June 2023, CMS approved MTP to continue for an additional five years. The MTP renewal—called MTP 2.0—began July 1, 2023, and ends June 30, 2028.
  • MTP (the waiver) is what allows our state to have the reentry program and provide certain Medicaid services up to 90 days before a person’s release.

Impacts before reentry legislation

Before 2017, people had to reapply for Apple Health (Medicaid) coverage after release (because their coverage was terminated and not suspended). That process took a while to show a person as eligible for Medicaid coverage, so—during their most vulnerable and at-risk time—released individuals could not:

• Receive necessary medications, equipment, or treatments.
• Access medical or health-related social needs services, such as:
  • Scheduling an appointment with a health care provider or counselor.
  • Securing housing, food, or transportation.

This delay created significant dangers for people with substance use disorder, serious mental illness, or other behavioral health need.

HCA’s reentry workgroup

In 2021, HCA formed the Reentry Advisory Workgroup, which plays a crucial role in our state’s reentry work. This workgroup—and the four subcommittees they oversee—are working on:

• Improving communication with managed care organizations (MCOs) for when an enrollee is incarcerated.
• Exploring a real-time data-sharing solution to provide booking and release notifications.
• Transmitting health records (which is especially important for jails), using HCA’s Clinical Data Repository.

In past work, the Reentry Advisory Workgroup added jail locations to a file that informs MCOs of an enrollee’s incarceration location. In partnership with MCOs, they also identified a solution that provides pharmacies same-day access upon an individual’s release.

• This way, a pharmacy can fill a person’s prescription the same day as their release, which is essential for medications and treatments for SUD and other behavioral health conditions.

Read the 2023 Reentry Community Services Workgroup legislative report.