Findings from Boston University in the Area of Managed Care Described (Massachusetts Medicaid Aco Program May Have Improved Care Use and Quality for Pregnant and Postpartum Enrollees): Managed Care

2024 NOV 12 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Current study results on Managed Care have been published. According to news originating from Boston, Massachusetts, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Value-based care models, such as Medicaid accountable care organizations (ACOs), have the potential to improve access to and quality of care for pregnant and postpartum Medicaid enrollees. We leveraged natural experiment in Massachusetts to evaluate the effects of Medicaid ACOs on quality-of-care-sensitive measures and care use across the prenatal, delivery, and postpartum periods.”

Financial support for this research came from National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health.

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Boston University, “Using all-payer claims data Medicaid-covered live deliveries in Massachusetts, we used a difference-indifferences approach to compare measures before (the first quarter of 2016 through the fourth quarter of 2017) and after (the third quarter of 2018 through the fourth quarter of 2020) Medicaid ACO implementation among ACO and non-ACO patients. After three years of implementation, the Medicaid ACO was associated with statistically significant increases the probability of a timely postpartum visit, postpartum depression screening, and number of all-cause office visits in the prenatal and postpartum periods, with no changes in severe maternal morbidity, preterm birth, postpartum glucose screening, or prenatal or postpartum emergency department visits. Changes in cesarean deliveries were inconclusive.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Results suggest that implementing Medicaid ACOs in the thirty-eight states without them could improve maternal health care outpatient engagement, but alone it may be insufficient to improve maternal health outcomes.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Massachusetts Medicaid Aco Program May Have Improved Care Use and Quality for Pregnant and Postpartum Enrollees. Health Affairs, 2024;43(9):1209-1218. Health Affairs can be contacted at: Project Hope, 7500 Old Georgetown Rd, Ste 600, Bethesda, MD 20814-6133, USA.

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from Megan B. Cole, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, United States. Additional authors for this research include Sarah H. Gordon, Karen E. Lasser, Collette Ncube, Nigel Deen, Kathleen Carey, Howard Cabral, Anna L. Goldman, Shannon Ogden, Lois McCloskey, Jihye Kim and Elizabeth Patton.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2024.00230. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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