Child support enforcement program, medical support enforcement--Office of Child Support Enforcement, HHS. Final rule.

OCSE is amending the Child Support Enforcement program regulations governing medical support enforcement. Prior regulations required State child support enforcement (IV-D) agencies to perform certain medical support enforcement activities. The regulation requires State IV-D agencies to extend these activities to certain IV-D cases no embraced by the prior regulations and eliminates a restriction which applies to cooperative agreements between State IV-D and State Medicaid agencies. The IV-D agency is required to develop criteria to identify existing child support cases which have a high potential for obtaining medical support, and to petition the court or administrative authority to modify support orders to include medical support for targeted cases even if no other modification is anticipated. In addition, the IV-D agency is required to provide the custodial parent with information pertaining to the health insurance coverage obtained by the absent parent for the dependent child(ren). Further, this regulation deletes the condition that IV-D agencies may only secure health insurance coverage under a cooperative agreement when it will not reduce the absent parent's ability to pay child support. Finally, this regulation deletes prior maintenance of effort requirements States must adhere to when entering into a cooperative agreement with the State Medicaid agency. No changes were made to the regulations as a result of comments received. These activities will expand the number of children for whom private health insurance coverage is obtained by increasing the availability of third party resources to pay for medical care and will result in Medicaid cost saving to State and Federal governments.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)