Integrated Care for Kids (InCK)

Integrated Care for Kids (InCK) is an innovative model to help improve the health, well-being, and future outcomes of Ohio's most vulnerable children. The approach aims to improve child health, reduce avoidable inpatient stays and out-of-home placement, and create a sustainable payment innovation mechanism. InCK is funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and led by Nationwide Children's Hospital (NCH) with guidance from the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) and community stakeholders, and partnership with the Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Center (GRC).

GRC provides data integration, measure development, risk stratification, and ad hoc analysis support for the InCK project in Ohio. GRC's work includes:

• Integrating ODM eligibility, claims, and health risk assessment data, Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services (ODJFS) child welfare and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) data (forthcoming), and program implementation data from NCH;
• Supporting measure development and data submissions tailored to Ohio's data and in compliance with CMS standards. This includes calculating domain-specific measures on all Medicaid-eligible children in the Ohio InCK counties (Licking and Muskingum) across physical and behavioral health diagnoses, maternal and child health services, child welfare involvement, functional symptoms (i.e., substance use-related diagnoses and severe mental illness), functional impairments, and out-of-home placements/risk of out-of-home placements; and
• Using integrated dataset to stratify children in Ohio's two InCK counties into risk tiers based on level of need, and reporting on beneficiaries' needs across multiple domains, including core child services, food and housing security, and clinical and non-clinical care.