Advocates’ comments to improve Medicaid
In response to DSS’s invitation for comments, last week four consumer advocate members of CT’s Medical Assistance Program Oversight Council (MAPOC) offered constructive recommendations to improve the program. The authors acknowledge the success of Connecticut’s Medicaid program as a national leader in cost control, access and quality of care. The authors strongly recommend against returning the program, in whole or part, to the managed care organization (MCO) model that badly failed Connecticut or to any provider financial risk model.
While our Medicaid program has much to be proud of, there is always room to improve. The advocates’ recommendations echo issues and solutions explored in meetings of MAPOC and its subcommittees.
The recommendations address:
- Focusing on quality and access to care
- Shorter call wait times
- Improve access to care for people with disabilities
- Improve access to Community-Based Long Term Care
- Ensure payment for Community Health Workers
- Find upstream, preventive solutions that reduce the need for medical care
- Improve access to Behavioral Healthcare
- Improve transparency and data reporting to at least previous levels