Medicaid Reform – Georgia

Posted on June 4, 2012 by townsend

• Reshaping Medicaid care to affect many, By Carrie Teegardin and Misty Williams, June 3, 2012, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Georgia is reshaping its Medicaid program, a complex lifeline for 1.7 million vulnerable people that consumes $21 million in state and federal dollars every single day. The state is widely expected to announce a plan this summer that would dramatically expand the use of for-profit insurance companies in a new approach to managing Medicaid. The hope: that the companies would help hold down burgeoning Medicaid costs by emphasizing prevention and better tracking and coordinating care. That should mean fewer poor, disabled and elderly Georgians end up in emergency rooms, that more psychiatric patients remain stable and that doctors share test results instead of ordering duplicates that taxpayers wind up funding…”
• Medicaid more than medical aid, By Misty Williams and Carrie Teegardin, June 4, 2012, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “People like Francel Kendrick once spent most of their lives locked inside state hospitals. Today, because of Georgia’s Medicaid program, Kendrick and thousands of disabled people like him can hold down a job and ride a city bus to their own homes after work. Medicaid isn’t just a health plan for low-income people. These days, it’s a job training program, relief for a mom with an autistic son and crisis teams to help someone with schizophrenia live a stable life in the community. State health officials who are redesigning the state’s $7.8 billion Medicaid program face an especially tricky task in dealing with recipients who rely on this broad spectrum of services. They are Georgians with developmental disabilities and mental illnesses, as well as foster children and people with disabling physical conditions that keep them in bed or in wheelchairs…”