New Evidence Points to Strategies for Making Medicaid Work Better - New Research Insights

With Medicaid expanding to cover more low-income adults, some Medicaid programs are experimenting with integrated case management (ICM) to help these patients address their specific medical, social and behavioral needs. But are these experiments proving effective? New research led by Gloria Bazzoli and supported by a NIHCM research grant took a close look at how integrated case management changes health care use and spending and found that ICM

• reduces racial disparities in the use of primary care and emergency care,
• decreases health service use by high-risk patients, and
• lowers spending for low-risk patients.

These one-page Research Insights highlight key takeaways from two recently published articles:

• Can Medicaid Reduce Racial Disparities in the Use of Health Services Through Integrated Case Management?
• Does Integrated Case Management Reduce Spending in Medicaid by Changing the Way Patients Use Health Care?