- Title
- Managing access: extending Medicaid to children through school-based HMO coverage.
- First Author
- Coulam, Robert F
- Date of Pub
- 1997 Spring
- Pages
- 149-175
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 3
- Other Authors
- Calore, Kathleen A; Irvin, Carol V; Kidder, David; Rosenbach, Margo L
- Abstract
- This study explores how a health maintenance organization's (HMO) capacity and incentives to manage care might be used to improve access. In the early 1990s, the Florida Healthy Kids (FHK) demonstration extended Medicaid-like HMO coverage to indigent children in the public schools of Volusia County, Florida. The study finds that uninsured student months in area public schools were likely reduced by one-half. Utilization and cost levels for these indigent enrollees proved to be indistinguishable from commercial clients; and measures of access, utilization, and satisfaction for enrollees were in line with (and in some cases, superior to) non-enrollees with private insurance. Overall, these results suggest the value of using schools as a medium for providing coverage, and the importance of taking deliberate steps to manage access to reduce non-financial barriers to care.
- Abstract Continued
- N/A
- MeSH
- Health Services Accessibility : Child : Child Health Services/economics/utilization : Eligibility Determination : Emergency Service, Hospital/utilization : Florida : Health Care Costs : Health Care Surveys : Health Maintenance Organizations/economics/utilization : Health Services Needs and Demand : Human : Medicaid/statistics & numerical data/utilization : Medical Indigency : Pilot Projects : Poverty : School Health Services/economics/utilization : Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S. : United States
- NTIS Number
- PB98-110554