Medicaid reports detail costs, savings of reform initiatives

Two recent reports completed for the Legislature and for the State of Alaska detail the potential cost savings and expenditures for Medicaid reform and expansion.

In the face of Alaska’s fiscal crisis, program expansion offers coverage for low-income Alaskans without increasing state costs according to the report commissioned for the Legislature, which concluded the matching federal funds could result in annual gain of $170 million.

A report completed on behalf of the state by Anchorage firm Agnew::Beck, Health Management Associates, and actuarial and consulting firm Milliman, Inc., details the goals of the Medicaid expansion plan along with potential cost savings of contracting with third parties to carry out the program reforms.

Five separate initiatives are laid out in the reform plan developed for the state. Three of the five propose contracting with administrative service organizations and data analytics firms to execute changes, removing the need for some costly in-house resources.

Several initiatives are linked by a mission to herd Medicaid users to options that might prevent the later need for serious medical care, and create statewide databases monitoring drug prescriptions.

First on the list is primary care initiative, which seeks to improve Medicaid enrollees’ access to primary care and preventative health options rather than emergency care, which is more expensive than primary care and is used to a disproportionate degree by Alaska Medicaid enrollees.

The initiative would use an outside administrative services organization to perform outreach to enrollees educating them on primary care options, as well as manage the primary care network.