What's new at MLS

Thanks again to all of you who participated in yesterday’s SNAP Coalition meeting – 92 participants, WOW!  And huge thanks again to DTA for keeping all the SNAP engines firing with the SNAP supplement, waiving interviews  and pursuing additional flexibilities around Interim…

TO: SNAP Coalition Members FR:  Pat Baker   Just a reminder of the Health Care for All Health Justice Academy series (every Wednesday in October), including this afternoon's 3 PM webinar on "Food and nutrition challenges, resources, and opportunities for immigrant…

The public health emergency which Sec Azar first announced in January, 2020 is up for renewal every 90 days. On Oct 2 he renewed the emergency declaration for another 90 days from Oct 23.   Most of the Medicaid protections during the pandemic, such as the moratorium on…

 A number of updates below after Tuesday's Coalition meeting - This is a long one, but we have a lot of info to get to you all! Thank you to Ellen Vollinger from the Food Research and Action Center for her presentation on the federal landscape and to Brittany Mangini from DTA for her…

We wanted to share a couple pieces of recent information we learned this week DTA that may have an impact on your clients. 1. Quincy DTA Office to Open Soon At a recent meeting with SNAP Coalition members, Commissioner McCue announced that DTA will be reopening a local office Quincy. The…

A lot has been going on this summer See earlier health announcements for good news on changes in MassHealth MCO standards for approving drugs that can cure Hepatitis C (effective August 1) and a new state law mandating MassHealth (and insurance) coverage for lipodistrophya side effect of…

Change to DTA Interview Calls DTA is making a change to how interview calls are made in SNAP cases. This change is scheduled to happen this Thursday, August 11.  Clients applying for SNAP are required to have an interview. Clients doing a recertification are also required to have an…

In the past six weeks, DTA has issued over a dozen 2013 “Operations Memos” announcing policy changes to the SNAP and cash assistance programs. The following Operations Memos (OM) advise DTA workers that DTA Central Office is looking at certain data matches. MLRI and our legal services colleagues are…

In the past six weeks, DTA has issued over a dozen 2013 “Operations Memos” announcing policy changes to the SNAP and cash assistance programs.  The following DTA Operations Memos affect verification of income. Please let us know if you see any problems with implementation in your SNAP advocacy work.…