Connecticut Medicaid says it launched maternity payment bundle and added doulas to network

Fatm Williams, deputy Medicaid director for Connecticut Medicaid, told the Maternal Mortality Review Committee at its April meeting that the state implemented a maternity payment bundle on Jan. 1, 2025, and added doulas as a new Medicaid-covered benefit.

"We implemented and launched a maternity payment bundle on January 1st, 2025," Williams said. She told the committee Medicaid covers approximately 42–43% of births in the state and that the program already has more than 10 doulas enrolled in the Medicaid provider network.

Williams said the agency is still awaiting claims runout and does not yet have complete outcome data to present. "We should be able to get good data by the end of this year," she said. In the first payment year, she said, the bundle includes social and clinical risk adjustments to reimburse providers caring for members with higher clinical and social risks.

Williams described recent administrative updates to case rates, saying the Department refreshed case rates to reflect fee-schedule and cost-of-living changes and to align financial incentives with quality and equity goals. She said doulas have agreed to publish contact information on the maternity bundle website so obstetricians and midwives can more easily refer patients.

A committee member asked how the payment model would account for major changes to obstetric coding scheduled to take effect in 2027. Williams replied that the payment process is adjusted annually and that case-rate refreshes effectively run about one year behind coding changes; the next refresh will incorporate any code changes that occurred during the prior year.

The committee did not receive additional data at the meeting; Williams said fuller claims data should be available later in the year for formal analysis and future reporting to the committee.