Iowa Medicaid Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT) Agreement

Guidelines, Tools, Information and Training for Health Care Providers

The Center for Disabilities and Development has partnered with DHS’s Iowa Medicaid Enterprise and the Prevention of Disabilities Policy Council since 1991 to undertake activities that promote participation in the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) program and enhance the quality of the services offered through EPSDT. Initial activities focused on increasing participation in the program. These activities successfully increased participation rates from a low of 9% to well over 90%.

Recent activities have focused on improving the quality of the services offered through the program. Current activities include:

  • Development and dissemination of the Iowa Child Health and Development Record (Iowa CHDR, pronounced "cheddar"), a set of age-specific, well-child visit forms for children birth to age 19. Medicaid has agreed use of the CHDR assures primary health care providers have met all requirements for an EPSDT screening exam. The CHDR and other screening tools are available for download at no cost from Iowa’s Care for Kids EPSDT provider website.
  • Development and dissemination of Medicaid guidelines for the early identification of young children at risk of disabilities, including developmental and social-emotional disabilities.
  • Iowa Healthy Child Development Initiative – Early Identification and Intervention for Children At Risk of Disabilities
  • Publication of the EPSDT Care for Kids Newsletters that comes out three times a year and provides practical health care information on a variety of relevant child health topics. It is mailed to about 4,500 primary health care providers and auxiliary health personnel who practice in Iowa and is available on the EPSDT Care for Kids provider website.
  • Development and maintenance of the Iowa Medicaid EPSDT Health provider website.

For more information about this agreement and current activities, contact Meredith Field at [email protected].