Coming Your Way…
Proposed Minimum Standards
for the Identification of Developmental, Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Concerns
 in Children Age Birth through Three Years

Winter 2006

Iowa Medicaid, through Iowa’s Assuring Better Child Health and Development II (ABCD II) Initiative, is moving to infuse best practices for the healthy mental development of young children into Iowa’s current Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT) Care for Kids system.

Proposed minimum standards of care. To facilitate this, an ABCD II Clinical Advisory Panel composed of key Iowa private and public health associations has proposed a set of minimum standards for Iowa health providers to use to identify developmental, social, emotional, and behavioral concerns in children birth through age three who participate in Medicaid.    

Recommended screening tools. The panel has also developed a list of recommended screening tools to help providers identify needs as a part of the provision of three levels of developmental care. These proposed standards and recommended tools are now being tested in an urban pediatric practice and a rural family practice in Iowa.

Evaluation of standards. These sites are also testing the use of a public-private partnership model to facilitate connecting families to community resources, and then communicating referral results back to the health provider.  An evaluation process is looking at the number of children identified, referred, and connected to services before and after implementation of the standards. Evaluation, which will be completed this spring, is also assessing ease of use of the standards, provider satisfaction with the standards, and billing considerations.

Your input is invited. The ABCD II Board and Clinical Advisory Panel will use what is learned from these evaluations and from comments from health providers like you to finalize a set of minimum standards for the identification of developmental, social, emotional, and behavioral concerns in children 0-3 years. Your input is an important part of this process. Here's how to provide input via mail or the web.

For more information about the ABCD II Initiative and the proposed standards,
visit www.IowaEPSDT.org.