Stats & Data
Medicaid update: Quality was rising through 2016, raising concerns about PCMH+
Friday’s MAPOC meeting focused on Medicaid quality and access information from CHNCT, DSS’s administrative contractor for the program. Across the 12 (of over 100) quality measures chosen, there was modest but sustained improvement from 2014 through 2016. However community health center performance consistently lags behind other PMCH practices across the quality measures. Of particular concern…
Read MoreCT suicide rate up, but it could be worse
The national suicide rate grew by 25% from 1999 to 2016 while CT’s rate grew by 19.2% over those years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Suicides in CT are more than three times higher for men and 31% higher for whites. Over half of Americans who died by suicide did…
Read MoreCT and surrounding states provide better than average quality care to Medicaid members
CMS has published a new Medicaid/CHIP scorecard to promote accountability and transparency in states’ programs. The site allows comparisons of state enrollment, eligibility, and access to relevant documents (state plan amendments and waivers) and expenditures. Most interesting is comparisons by state across adult and child health quality metrics for 2016. Like our neighboring states, CT…
Read MoreRest of US catching up with CT – Medicaid managed care doesn’t work
Two Health Affairs blog posts highlight the disappointments states are having with their capitated Medicaid managed care programs. Managed care across the US is growing fast, making big profits for private insurance companies, promising improved health outcomes and lowering costs. But CT found exactly the opposite effect when we shifted away from capitated managed care…
Read MoreUpdated data from DSS call center – wait times are 107 and 105 minutes, not 2 minutes
In response to a Freedom of Information request, advocates learned last week that 56% of callers waiting to talk to a human at DSS’s benefits center chose to hang up in both March and April of this year. That’s probably because average wait times for the benefits center were 107 and 105 minutes, in March…
Read MoreMedicaid missing data concerns
Friday’s Medicaid Council meeting focused on concerns with Veyo, the state’s new transportation contractor, and DSS operations performance, especially ongoing call center problems. Unfortunately, we are getting even less data than in the past. Veyo’s presentation did little to counter the landslide of complaints from consumers and providers about the transportation system and missing data…
Read MoreState Scorecard finds CT does fairly well, but poorly in Avoidable Hospital Use and Cost
The latest Commonwealth Fund State Scorecard finds CT’s performance across our health system ninth among states, unchanged from last year. While good, we can do much better given our rankings in personal income, education and overall high health status. We are 32nd among states in Avoidable Hospital Use and Costs, down by three from last…
Read MoreBirths to very young girls declining, CT rate low but towns vary
A new CDC analysis finds that births to girls ages 10 to 14 reached a record low in 2015 and 2016 at 0.2 per 1,000 population. CT was among 8 states with the lowest rate; Mississippi was highest at 0.7 per 1,000. DPH’s vital statistics reported 15 births to CT girls under age 15 in…
Read MoreThirty-one independent consumer advocates share concerns with SIM’s latest push for capitation
Despite the historic failures of capitation in Connecticut and beyond, our state’s SIM health planning office is continuing the drumbeat to re-impose the risky system across our state, this time for primary care. In Primary Care Payment Reform: Unlocking the Potential of Primary Care, the SIM office is proposing set payments for primary care providers…
Read MoreCT life expectancy rising, but risks vary
A comprehensive, new analysis of public health outcomes, risks, and causes by state published in JAMA finds that life expectancy for CT residents rose from 77 years in 1990 to 80.8 year in 2016. Healthy life expectancy (maybe more important) also rose from 66.5 years to 69 years. States varied widely in the burden of…
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