In this series, the Western North Carolina Health Policy Initiative podcast explores the Healthy Opportunities Pilot program from a few perspectives to help educate our listeners and policymakers about what's on the table in light of state budget cuts to the program. In this installment, we hear about the impact of the HOP from the perspectives of the WNC network lead, a participating HSO, and two families with children enrolled.

This summer, North Carolina's House and Senate will be working to finalize our biennial budget on June 30th, beginning July 1st, 2025 and covering the next two fiscal years. Inside this budget is the fate of what's known as an Innovative Pilot Program across three regions, including Western North Carolina: the Healthy Opportunities Pilot, a program that uses Medicaid funding to address some upstream health issues like food access, transportation, housing, and interpersonal violence. By addressing these root issues, the program hopes to both improve health outcomes for North Carolinians, saving them and the state money. In this short series of the Western North Carolina Health Policy Initiative podcast, we'll be taking a look at this pilot program from a few perspectives to help educate our listeners and policymakers about what's on the table. Today we'll look at an evaluation of HOP to better understand how the program is working and its impact on the state's bottom line.

A new study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association demonstrates that Medicaid beneficiaries enrolled in NC’s Healthy Opportunities Pilot (HOP) showed an overall decrease in Medicaid spending compared to non-HOP enrollees and reduced utilization of emergency services - all indicators that correlate to improved health outcomes.

In December, 2024, CMS approved a new 1115 waiver renewing funding and expansion opportunities for several programs, including the successful NC Healthy Opportunities Pilot, which uses Medicaid funds to provide social determinants of health interventions such as housing, food, transportation and other supports to Medicaid beneficiaries as a cost-savings measure to improve health outcomes and to prevent or manage chronic disease.