Medicaid and Managed Care
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Managed care is a health care system under which doctors, hospitals and other caregivers are organized into a group or network to manage the cost, quality and access to health care. Since the early 1980s, states have relied increasingly on managed care to serve their Medicaid beneficiaries. Two-thirds of Medicaid enrollees now receive most or all of their benefits in managed care and many states are expanding their use of managed care to additional geographic areas and Medicaid populations. Studies investigating the savings impact of Medicaid managed care have produced mixed results. Findings appear to depend on many factors related to the specifics of states’ baseline Medicaid programs and their managed care contracts and the analytic strategy used in the research. Greater use of managed care in Medicaid is likely to continue, fueled by interest in improved care delivery and payment systems, ongoing state budget pressures and federal funding opportunities that promote managed care.
For more information on managed care, please see the list of NCSL resources on the right or the list of new resources and publications below.
New NCSL Resources