The Oregon Health Authority released its benchmark-setting report tracking the progress of the state's Medicaid transformation program, which is projected to save $11 billion over the next 10 years.
Under the new program, which was implemented with the help of a $1.9 billion grant from the CMS, 15 coordinated-care organizations are currently covering 93% of the state's 670,000 Medicaid beneficiaries. The short-term goal is to lower Medicaid spending by 2 percentage points by the end of 2014.
Oregon will be releasing reports on a quarterly basis tracking the program's progress on dozens of different quality and cost metrics. Data from this first report, which includes measures from October to December 2012, will serve as the benchmark. The report also includes 2011 pre-CCO formation data for comparison.
“The data in this first report largely describe where we are starting—our baseline,” Dr. Bruce Goldberg, director of the Oregon Health Authority, wrote in the beginning of the report. “This is the beginning of what will be a long journey toward a transformed healthcare system in Oregon. Each subsequent report will show the impact of health system transformation on health outcomes and on cost, quality and access, and future reports will also have a breakdown by race and ethnicity.”
There are performance reports for individual CCOs and an aggregated statewide report. The statewide report shows small improvements across the board except with some small backward slides on performance measures for follow-up care for children with prescribed attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder medications, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma hospital admission rates, congestive heart failure admission rates and adult asthma hospital admission rates.
The financial section of the report is a work in progress, and the report noted that values will be recalculated as more data become available.
Also included in the report are short vignettes describing innovative services being offered by different providers and progress reports on related initiatives such as the state's patient-centered primary-care home program.
“Primary-care homes are at the heart of Oregon's health system transformation efforts,” the report stated. “To the extent possible, coordinated-care organizations are required to include recognized primary-care homes in their networks of care.”
According to the report, about 60% of the CCO members are receiving care from a primary-care home, and this number is expected to grow over time.
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