Researchers from Emory University Report New Studies and Findings in the Area of Mental Health Diseases and Conditions (Evaluating Medicaid Managed Care Network Adequacy Standards and Associations With Specialty Care Access for Children): Mental Health Diseases and Conditions

2023 AUG 01 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- New research on Mental Health Diseases and Conditions is the subject of a report. According to news originating from Atlanta, Georgia, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Medicaid managed care plans cover more than 80 percent of Medicaid-enrolled children, including many children with special health care needs (CSHCN). Federal rules require states to set network adequacy standards to improve specialty care access for Medicaid managed care enrollees.”

Funders for this research include NIH National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Centers for Disease Control & Prevention - USA, United States Department of Health & Human Services, Optum Health Foundation, National Cancer Institute, CDC, Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, NIH National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Emory University, “Using a quasi-experimental design and 2016-19 National Survey of Children’s Health data, we examined the association between quantitative network adequacy standards and access to specialty care among 8,614 Medicaid-enrolled children, including 3,157 with special health care needs, in eighteen states. Outcomes included whether the child had any visit to non-mental health specialists, any visit to mental health professionals, or any unmet health care needs and whether the caregiver ever felt frustrated in getting services for the child in the past year. We observed no association between the adoption of any quantitative network adequacy standard and the above outcomes among Medicaid-enrolled children. Among CSHCN, however, adopting any quantitative standard was positively associated with caregivers feeling frustrated in getting services for the child, especially among CSHCN who visited non-mental health specialists.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Without additional interventions, adopting new network adequacy standards may have unintended consequences for CSHCN.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Evaluating Medicaid Managed Care Network Adequacy Standards and Associations With Specialty Care Access for Children. Health Affairs, 2023;42(6):759-769. 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 Ju-Chen Hu, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, United States. Additional authors for this research include Janet R. Cummings, Xu Ji and Adam S. Wilk.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2022.01439. 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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