The Massachusetts Medical Society is grateful for the decision made by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the collaboration between CMS and the Baker administration that will extend our innovative MassHealth section 1115 waiver. Initiatives under this waiver make meaningful progress toward
improving health equity by ensuring our most vulnerable patients, children, and families will have access to high-quality care that is affordable and equitable.
Importantly, this waiver invests critical resources to better integrate and sustain programs addressing social determinants of health that drive disparities in health care access and outcomes. Key initiatives to bolster and diversify the depleted health
care workforce, especially in the areas of primary care and behavioral health, will better enable health care teams to treat the whole patient and allow more citizens of the Commonwealth the opportunity to enjoy the highest attainable standard of
health.
-Theodore A. Calianos, II, MD, FACS, President, Massachusetts Medical Society
