The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today began requiring state Medicaid programs to cover counseling visits at which health care providers talk with families about COVID-19 vaccination for their children. CMS said it will consider COVID-19 vaccine counseling visits provided to children under age 21 through the Medicaid Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment benefit as COVID-19 vaccine administration, for which state expenditures can be federally matched at 100% under the American Rescue Plan Act. CMS said it also will begin requiring states to cover stand-alone vaccine counseling visits related to all pediatric vaccines under the EPSDT benefit. 

“By supporting conversations between families and health care providers and answering parents’ questions, we can connect more children to effective vaccines,” said CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure.
 

Related News Articles

Headline
The Food and Drug Administration July 15 announced a recall by Sandoz on certain lots of cefazolin, due to the lots being mislabeled as penicillin G potassium…
Headline
 The Food and Drug Administration July 10 approved Moderna’s Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine for children under 12 with at least one underlying condition that…
Headline
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. May 27 announced in a post on X that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…
Headline
Leaders of the Food and Drug Administration May 20 announced new guidelines for administering the COVID-19 vaccine in a paper published by the New England…
Headline
The Senate Finance Committee Feb. 4 voted 14-13 to advance Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. A…
Headline
AHA's latest social media toolkit for encouraging vaccination against the flu and COVID-19 provides fall-themed social media posts and graphics. Download the…