Study Advises Idaho’s Medicaid Program to Expand Its Managed Care Section

If Idaho expanded the managed care portion of its Medicaid program, the state could save "millions of dollars" per year, according to an analysis by the Lewin Group and Sjoberg Evanshenk Consulting, the Spokane Spokesman-Review reports. The consultants proposed eight "specific changes" that could save the state up to $6.7 million per year and other "management changes" that would yield unspecified savings. The state pays 30% of the Medicaid program costs -- $187 million this year -- while the federal government picks up the remaining 70%. Idaho's Medicaid spending per client is among the 10 lowest in the nation and its program "offers little beyond" federal requirements, Lewin Group principal Chuck Milligan said. However, the program's administrative costs are the second-highest in the nation at 9% of program spending, although this is "skewed by inclusion of a new $20 million computer system that was completed in 1999," the Spokesman-Review reports. Milligan also projected that Idaho's Medicaid budget will grow by 37% in the coming year because of growing enrollment and medical costs. The report's recommendations include:

• Convert the state's veterans homes to Medicaid, which would shift 70% of their costs to the federal government;
• Require Medicaid beneficiaries to pay small co-payments;