Improving Medicaid Managed Care for Youth with Serious Behavioral Health Needs

A Quality Improvement Toolkit

By the Center for Health Care Strategies

September 1, 2009

Summary

This tool kit shares the experiences of nine Medicaid managed care organizations, which collaborated over a two-year period to identify better ways to care for youth with serious behavioral health needs. Its pages tell of quality-improvement strategies, challenges, lessons learned and care innovations worthy of a closer look. The end goal? A rare win-win: reducing costs while improving outcomes for these high-needs youth.  

Table of Contents

Key Takeaway

Workgroup participants concentrated on improving outcomes for youth with serious behavioral health needs

Seven collaborative participant organizations implemented and sustained their improvement plans. These plans focused on three areas: 1) educating primary care providers to better identify and treat adolescent depression; 2) reducing the unnecessary use of long-term, high-cost residential services; and 3) offering customized care management services.

Findings & Stats

Statements & Quotations