Linking Medicaid Payment to Quality at the Nation’s Community Health Centers
<p>Along with other health care payers, state Medicaid programs are trying to develop new approaches to provider payment that promote better care at lower cost. In a new <em>To the Point</em> post, George Washington University’s Sara Rosenbaum and colleagues discuss how Medicaid programs are changing the way they pay community health centers, which cared for about one of five beneficiaries in 2015.</p><p>The authors point out a key challenge to Medicaid payment reform at health centers: balancing the need to maintain sufficient revenue to care for uninsured patients, while tying payment to improved quality and efficiency. </p>
<p>How states are meeting this challenge is the subject of an accompanying report from George Washington University that was supported through grants from The Commonwealth Fund and the RCHN Community Health Foundation. It looks at five Medicaid expansion states—California, Colorado, Minnesota, New York, and Oregon—that are testing global payment and other alternative systems that link payment to health center performance.</p>