Agenda - 03-09-1999 - III-B - Laserfiche WebLink

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r� • • CHILD HEALTH ► Indicator 15: Preventable Hospitaliza- tions per 1, 000 Children Under Age 6 Indicator 15 depicts, for total and Medicaid children under the age of 6, rates of hospital- ization for conditions that might have been pre- vented or ameliorated by adequate and timely primary care. Higher rates for Medicaid chil- dren may suggest that there are barriers to am- bulatory care for those children. Based on results for 1990 -92, the Medicaid child is at excess risk of hospitalization for se- vere ear /nose /throat (ENT) infections, asthma, and gastroenteritis. Trends in these rates bear watching as efforts are made to improve the pri- mary care picture for children on Medicaid. Carolina Access is a new program to provide a more efficient and effective health care sys- tem for Medicaid recipients by linking them to primary care providers who deliver and coordinate their health care. Begun as a dem- onstration project in April 1991, the program had expanded to 38 counties with 221,023 en- rollees as of December 1, 1995. This repre- sented about 27 percent of Medicaid enrollees statewide. Almost all states and the District of Colum- bia how have managed care plans for Medic- aid recipients, involving about one - quarter of the Medicaid population nationally. Somewhat surprisingly, given many providers' past reluc- tance to accept Medicaid reimbursement rates, competition to run the new Medicaid managed care contracts is strong.' Future updates of this report should examine Indicator 15 for Carolina Access counties ver- sus others. After several years of experience with the program, Medicaid enrollees in partici- pating counties should be at lower risk for po- tentially preventable hospitalizations. Rates of Preventable Hospitalizations* Total and Medicaid Populations Under Age 6 in North Carolina ,,,, Total discharges M Medicaid discharges III Potend* avoidable with adequate and timely primary cam. See cwt nd", opposlb. Access to Health Care in North Carolina I 25 I