Henry Littman, New Hampshire's state Medicaid director, updated the committee on the implementation and utilization of expanded postpartum Medicaid coverage during the Oct. 24 meeting.

Littman said the state completed required Medicaid postpartum coverage by Oct. 2023 and, through May 2025, about 2,351 women had taken advantage of the benefit. The most frequently accessed service categories were mental-health services, substance-use disorder services (noted at roughly 8 percent), and preventive services (about 25 percent); heart or hypertension-related services were roughly 6 percent of utilization for postpartum beneficiaries. Littman warned that the program is still early in terms of producing large, nationally reliable analytics, but he said the data point toward mental-health and SUD interventions as important drivers of morbidity reduction in Medicaid-covered births.

During questions, a committee member and Littman discussed the metric that 46 percent of women who received postpartum coverage accessed mental-health services; Littman confirmed that figure refers to the population of women enrolled in the postpartum coverage program. Members asked for follow-up geographic breakout (percentages or rates by location), and Littman said he would supply maps or analyses showing per-capita rates by community.

Littman and committee members linked this program's aims with other state priorities, including rural health transformation funding, certified community behavioral health clinics and crisis system investments that seek to shorten emergency-department waits and improve transitions back to the community.