Research Conducted at Oregon Health and Science University Has Updated Our Knowledge about Medicare and Medicaid (Oregon’s Coordinated Care…

Insurance Weekly News

Research Conducted at Oregon Health and Science University Has Updated Our Knowledge about Medicare and Medicaid (Oregon's Coordinated Care Organizations Increased Timely Prenatal Care Initiation And Decreased Disparities)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- Investigators discuss new findings in Medicare and Medicaid. According to news reporting from Portland, Oregon, by VerticalNews journalists, research stated, "Policies at the state and federal levels affect access to health services, including prenatal care. In 2012 the State of Oregon implemented a major reform of its Medicaid program."

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from Oregon Health and Science University, "The new model, called a coordinated care organization (CCO), is designed to improve the coordination of care for Medicaid beneficiaries. This reform effort provides an ideal opportunity to evaluate the impact of broad financing and delivery reforms on prenatal care use. Using birth certificate data from Oregon and Washington State, we evaluated the effect of CCO implementation on the probability of early prenatal care initiation, prenatal care adequacy, and disparities in prenatal care use by type of insurance. Following CCO implementation, we found significant increases in early prenatal care initiation and a reduction in disparities across insurance types but no difference in overall prenatal care adequacy."

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: "Oregon's reforms could serve as a model for other Medicaid and commercial health plans seeking to improve prenatal care quality and reduce disparities."

For more information on this research see: Oregon's Coordinated Care Organizations Increased Timely Prenatal Care Initiation And Decreased Disparities. Health Affairs, 2016;35(9):1625-1632. Health Affairs can be contacted at: Project Hope, 7500 Old Georgetown Rd, Ste 600, Bethesda, MD 20814-6133, USA.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting I. Muoto, Oregon Health Sciences University, Dept. of Obstet & Gynecol, Portland, OR 97201, United States. Additional authors for this research include J. Luck, J. Yoon, S. Bernell and J.M. Snowden.

Keywords for this news article include: Portland, Oregon, United States, North and Central America, Medicare and Medicaid, Health Policy, Medicaid, Oregon Health and Science University.