Health and Disability

However, one category of findings really stood out for me – those around care coordination. Care coordination is the lynchpin of the demonstrations, aimed at countering the system’s fragmentation caused by the separate financing and benefit structures of Medicare and Medicaid as well as the complex health needs of many beneficiaries. Yet only 30 percent of enrollees in managed care plans recalled receiving help from their health plan and/or providers in coordinating their care. And, only 54 percent of enrollees in Washington and 62 percent in Colorado (the two health home demonstrations) indicated that they were usually or always helped by someone on their care team to make a treatment plan or plan ahead to take care of their condition. These findings echoed reports over the past year from the Government Accountability Office, an Early Indicators Project in Massachusetts, a consumer survey in Ohio and our own survey of ACAP health plans. Similarly, new evaluation results of the California demonstration project released this week found that only 34 percent of enrollees reported having a care coordinator and 40 percent of enrollees didn’t even know they could get care coordination.