South Dakota’s community health worker data show promising results

Community health workers (CHWs) play a vital role in helping people navigate the health care and social services ecosystems in their communities. Most CHW work involves helping people with low income, including Medicaid beneficiaries, address multiple challenges to accessing health services and supports. This includes linking people to primary care providers, strengthening health literacy, addressing upstream factors tied to poor outcomes, and avoiding reliance on costly acute care or forgoing care altogether.

Consequently, many states are investing in CHW services programmatically and through Medicaid reimbursement approaches. NASHP’s state CHW policy tracker details Medicaid state plan and waiver approaches across the country.  While a body of research shows CHW services significantly improve outcomes and generate return on investment, states are seeking more systematic impact analyses of CHW services in Medicaid.  

South Dakota’s preliminary analysis of Medicaid claims data captures early findings of CHW cost-effectiveness for the state’s Medicaid program.