Doula care is available anytime during your pregnancy, labor and delivery, or in the months after the end of your pregnancy. Doula care is available in addition to the clinical care (e.g., physician, midwife) you have for prenatal care, labor and delivery, and during the postpartum period.

A doula can support you with education and emotional and physical support. They may visit you in the home/community, accompany you to your clinical appointments, or provide continuous labor support at the hospital or birth center.

Receiving doula care can help you have a better, more positive birth experience.

Your NJ FamilyCare health insurance covers your doula care at no additional cost when provided by a NJ FamilyCare community doula.

To find a doula to support you, please visit one of our NJ FamilyCare Community Doula Directories. The directory you will use depends on the type of NJ FamilyCare member you are. If you are a managed care member, you will have one of the five cards shown here and should visit that specific managed care organization’s directory listed below (i.e., Aetna, Fidelis Care, Horizon, UnitedHealthcare, or Wellpoint). If you have the blue and white Health Benefits Identification Card shown here, please visit the fee-for-service directory.

Fee-for-service directory

If you are a fee-for-service NJ FamilyCare member looking for doula care, call your local Medical Assistance Customer Center (MACC) (listed here) for help. To find the doula directory for fee-for-service members, please visit https://www.njmmis.com and click on “Provider Directory” on the left side of the page. Select “Doula Provider” option from the “Provider Specialty” dropdown menu. Click “Submit Request”.

Managed care directories

If you are a managed care NJ FamilyCare member looking for doula care, call your managed care “Member Services” number (listed here) and ask for the maternity case management team for help. To find the doula directory for your specific managed care plan, please see:

• Aetna Better Health of New Jersey: Community doula list (PDF)
• Fidelis Care: Click on “Doula service providers” menu under “Specialty Provider Directories” here
• Horizon NJ Health: Community doulas list for Horizon NJ Health and D-SNP  (PDF)
• UnitedHealthcare Community Plan: Community Doula List (PDF)
• Wellpoint:  See directories under “Connecting you with community doula services in New Jersey here 

We welcome all doulas offering doula care to New Jersey clients to serve NJ FamilyCare families.

Doulas who would like to receive reimbursement from NJ FamilyCare must be enrolled as NJ FamilyCare community doula. Community doulas are best equipped to meet the particular needs of our diverse NJ FamilyCare members as they receive additional training in delivering culturally competent care and accessing NJ’s community-based resources. To be eligible to become a NJ FamilyCare community doula, you must have completed your doula training from one of the trainings listed in our NJ FamilyCare Approved Trainings document. (If you are an organization responsible for a doula training please skip to the section below “Information for Organizations that provide Doula Trainings”.)

If you are interested in becoming a NJ FamilyCare community doula, the first step is to complete an application to become a “fee-for-service” provider within NJ FamilyCare.

NJ FamilyCare seeks to reduce the administrative burdens of becoming a NJ FamilyCare provider so that you can spend less time on paperwork, and more time providing high-quality care to families:

1. We invite you to use the online NJ Doula Assistant tool to start your application. It simply communicates the application requirements and helps you fill out a near-complete fee-for-service application. Visit https://doula-assistant.nj.gov to learn more and use the tool.
2. We also invite you to get 1-on-1 support from NJ FamilyCare's Doula Guides staff members dedicated to helping you enroll and participate in NJ FamilyCare. Our Doula Guides are doulas themselves. You can reach our Doula Guides by emailing them at this address: mahs.doulaguide@dhs.nj.gov

For more information about the doula care you can get reimbursed for as a NJ FamilyCare community doula, please see our NJ Medicaid Provider Newsletter.

NJ FamilyCare approval of your doula training makes it possible for the doulas that have completed your training to become NJ FamilyCare community doulas.

If your training is not on the current NJ FamilyCare Approved Trainings document, a staff member of the doula organization must submit an Approval Packet with information about your training so that we can determine whether it meets the requirements for approval. Doula trainings are approved by the New Jersey Department of Human Services (NJ-DHS)—in consultation with the NJ Department of Health (NJ-DOH). New Jersey Maternal and Infant Health Authority (NJ-MIHIA) works with NJ-DHS and NJ-DOH to support training organizations in completing the necessary Approval Packet paperwork. 

To learn more about the minimum training standards and the process for submission and review of a Approval Packet, please visit NJ-MIHIA’s NJ FamilyCare Doula Training Approval website and email NJ-MIHIA at this address doula@njmihia.gov.

Organizations do not need to seek NJ FamilyCare approval for your doulas to generally provide doula care in the state of NJ. Approval of trainings only impacts your doulas’ ability to enroll as NJ FamilyCare community doulas and receive reimbursement from NJ FamilyCare.

Design of NJ FamilyCare’s doula benefit

The design and implementation of New Jersey’s community doula program benefited from the input of a doula stakeholder group. This group included community-based doulas and representatives from non-profit foundations in the maternal health space, our NJ FamilyCare managed care organizations, and the NJ Department of Health. The work of the community doula stakeholder group from 2019-2021 was summarized at the October 19, 2021 meeting. To see the slide deck presented, click here.