State Letter

	DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES	Office of the Secretary
		Washington, D.C. 20201

Dear [Name of CHIP or Medicaid Director]:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (DHHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), in coordination with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), is conducting a national evaluation of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) as required by the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA). ASPE has contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, in collaboration with the Urban Institute, to conduct this work. States’ CHIP programs have evolved rapidly over the past decade, due in large part to legislative changes under the Deficit Reduction Act, added flexibilities provided by CHIPRA, economic conditions and State fiscal circumstances, and changes in health care systems. The Affordable Care Act introduces further potential for change in State CHIP programs. The goal of this new evaluation is to examine the nature and magnitude of change CHIP programs have experienced since the previous evaluation, the influence of key design features on the enrollment and health care experiences of eligible children, and current program and policy issues. In addition, the evaluation will assess major aspects of CHIP and provide an opportunity to see how 10 selected State programs compare with one another to gain insights on important factors influencing program operations and outcomes.

An important component of this evaluation is telephone discussions with CHIP program administrators in all 50 States and the District of Columbia. We would like to request your participation in such a discussion, which will be scheduled in January or February 2013 and will take approximately one hour to complete. The questions will focus primarily on issues related to the evolution of your CHIP program, especially in the wake of CHIPRA and federal health reform legislation, and not on program details that are publicly available or can otherwise be researched or accessed by us ahead of time. [For Combination States Only: Because [State] has both a Medicaid-expansion and separate CHIP program, we plan to coordinate the telephone discussion to accommodate administrators for both programs.] Evaluation staff from Mathematica Policy Research will be contacting you by e-mail or telephone in a few days to set up a time to talk with you.

We appreciate that you receive many requests for information and we will make every effort to minimize the burden of this evaluation on you and your staff. We expect this evaluation will produce a wealth of new information that can help guide critical program and policy decisions at both the state and federal level. We look forward to working with you on this project of national importance, and we welcome your support and assistance. If you have any questions about this study, please contact Rose Chu, the ASPE project officer for this study, by phone at 202-401-6119 or by email at Rose.Chu@hhs.gov.

Sincerely,

Sherry Glied Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Cindy Mann Director of the CMS Center for Medicaid, CHIP & Survey and Certification Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

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