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The thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog’s posts are thoses of the individual blogger's alone and are not representative, unless clearly and unequivocally stated, of those of United Way of Greater New Haven or United Way Worldwide.
Amy Casavina Hall came to United Way in May of 2007 for the newly created position of Director of Civic to focus on both strengthening and broadening what civic engagement means to United Way and the Greater New Haven community. In the summer of 2008 Amy took on the position of Director of Community Impact to help lead United Way’s community investment and civic engagement efforts.
Amy brings a wealth of experience to her position with nine years focused specifically in the nonprofit sector. Most recently, she served as the Executive Director of Mount Wachusett Community College’s...
New Haven is at the Tip of a Health Care Cost Savings Iceburg
Let's do more of what works.
And in health care, three years ago the CT legislature asked HUSKY (Connecticut's Medicaid program to provide health care coverage to low-income children and adults) to pilot a program called Primary Care Case Management (PCCM) that has demonstrated significant cost savings in other parts of the county. The idea is simple: remove private insurance companies and instead people on HUSKY covered by PCCM receive care coordination through their primary care physicians. The state pays providers $7.50/month to cover the cost of coordinating care, and patients get the benefit of working closely with their doctors and not facing limits on care based on health insurance providers trying to manage their costs.
Sounds like a system we would all like to experience, and the cost savings are real. A June 7, 2010 story in the CT Mirror reports, "Most states provide Medicaid through PCCM, exclusively or in parallel with MCOs (managed care insurance organizations). See http://www.cthealthpolicy.org/pccm/pccm_medicaid.pdf. In March 2010, the Connecticut legislature's research arm concluded that other states have saved millions through PCCM (http://www.cga.ct.gov/2010/rpt/2010-R-0138.htm). For example, it noted that administrative costs for PCCM in Pennsylvania are almost half the administrative costs of its MCO-run program."
Yet, it's been a tug of war between advocates, the State Department of Social Services that manages Medicaid in CT, and the Governor's office to move beyond a relatively small pilot in CT and make this a real, attractive option for HUSKY clients. United Way of Greater New Haven helped advance the roll-out of PCCM in New Haven, one of the four pilot sites for the effort, by partnering with New Haven Legal Assistance Association to let residents of New Haven on HUSKY know that PCCM is an option for them. NHLAA has taken the lead in the city to wage a public education campaign for providers and patients to enroll in the program. UWGNH joined this effort by supporting the production of public education materials, including sending home flyers with every student in the New Haven public schools (over 25,000 students) on this new win-win option for families and physicians.
Work continues in New Haven to engage people on a one-on-one level in accessing the benefits of PCCM. The real opportunity is to make this an integral part of -- if not the leading edge -- our publicly-funded health care system. That will come from champions who bring this opportunity to the attention of the state's leadership and press for statewide implementation in order to get better results for residents of CT. Results that we see in people's improved health and our pocket-books.
Read the 12/29/2001 story on PCCM in the New Haven Independent
Comments
This effort has the potential for having a very positive impact on the accessibility of health care for low income families. By putting the management of health care services directly into the hands of patients and their primary care providers the costs of providing health care to this segment of the population should be dramatically reduced.
In addition to being a great care option for Husky A families, the cost-saving statistics from other states are hard to ignore. The more I learn about this option, the more obvious the advantages become. I hope to see this program expand in terms of location, providers and families served.
Primary care providers all across Connecticut are very excited about this new patient and doctor-centered option, which cuts out the huge administrative costs and profits of HMOs and is now used by 30 other states. At least one of the Gubernatorial candidates also is embracing robust statewide expansion of this exciting new option in the HUSKY program. With a new governor and administration, and real support for primary care providers from the Department of Social Services, including active marketing of this new option commensurate with the marketing DSS authorized (with taxpayer money) for the new HMOs in the HUSKY program, this program will really take off next year.
A statewide PCCM program with support from the new administration will improve access to care under Medicaid, while saving substantial taxpayer money. In the meantime, United Way of Greater New Haven has made a major contribution by helping get the word out about this new program on the grassroots level.
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