Healthcare Policy Implementation Lab · Funding
Help build the implementation capacity Minnesota will need for 2027 and beyond.
The Lab requires shared, cross-organizational implementation infrastructure that no single participating organization can fund alone. Foundations, health plans, and other funders make it possible to build that infrastructure before implementation breakdowns become coverage and access problems.
Minnesota faces a double financial hit.
- Approximately $165 million more each year could be spent administering the new work-reporting requirements.
- Approximately $200 million less each year could flow into Minnesota's healthcare system because people lose coverage.
That means more money spent processing eligibility and less money available to provide care.
When coverage disappears, healthcare needs do not. Costs shift to hospitals, clinics, counties, taxpayers, employers, and insured patients — and financially strained organizations may be forced to reduce services.
Funding the Lab creates the shared infrastructure needed to reduce avoidable coverage loss, administrative burden, and downstream costs.
Source: Minnesota Department of Human Services. Estimates reflect current projections and may change as implementation guidance is finalized.
What funding supports
Funding enables the shared, cross-organizational implementation infrastructure that individual participating organizations are unlikely to be able to build alone:
- Cross-sector convening and Core Team coordination
- Discovery with frontline teams and beneficiaries
- In-person co-design and implementation planning
- Participation support or stipends where needed
- Rapid-cycle testing and implementation coaching
- Shared measurement and learning
- Documentation, training, playbooks, and dissemination
What funders and partners receive
- Earlier identification of implementation risks and unintended consequences in beneficiary-facing workflows.
- Tested workflows and tools rather than recommendations alone.
- A shared picture of how policy, operations, technology, data, and beneficiary experience connect across organizations.
- Practical implementation products that participating organizations can adapt and use as appropriate.
- A documented model that can be sustained, adapted, and applied to future policy transitions.
Participation and funding principles
- Funding or participation does not confer control over beneficiary input, findings, results, or recommendations.
- Sponsor and participant roles and potential conflicts of interest will be disclosed.
- No organization will be publicly identified as a participant, partner, or sponsor without permission.
- Beneficiary and frontline-worker perspectives will be gathered using appropriate consent, privacy, and data-security safeguards.
- Products will distinguish tested findings from recommendations that have not yet been validated.
A model for more than one policy change
The Lab's long-term value is the implementation infrastructure it creates: relationships, shared methods, tested workflows, measurement capability, and a repeatable way for organizations to move complex healthcare policy from intent to practice.
The same model can be adapted for other policy transitions and complex healthcare challenges that cross organizations and cannot be solved through guidance, planning, or isolated pilots alone.
Ready to discuss funding the Lab?
We are in the building phase. Funders who engage now will help shape what gets built and how it is sustained.