Exploring Strategies to Fill Gaps in Medicaid Race, Ethnicity, and Language Data

This commentary provides an overview of current race, ethnicity, and language data collection standards; ideas for increasing completeness in data by engaging the enrollee and enrollment assisters, and modifying enrollment and renewal interface; and provides suggestions for how states could leverage alternative sources of data in order to improve data completeness.

States face longstanding and persistent challenges in collecting complete, accurate, and consistent race, ethnicity, and language data as they seek to address the social determinants of health and advance health equity.