New Nonpartisan Report Examines Tools to Help Medicaid Beneficiaries Find Providers to Receive Care

WASHINGTON, DC – Bicameral Republican leaders today shared a new report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) examining state resources for helping Medicaid beneficiaries find providers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that approximately 77 million Americans are enrolled in Medicaid this year. Managed care is the dominant mode that beneficiaries receive their care. Still, GAO found that an estimated 16 million beneficiaries remain in fee-for-service delivery systems, specifically noting that “aged and disabled beneficiaries and children with special health care needs were the most likely of different Medicaid populations to be served through fee-for-service arrangements instead of managed care.”

The GAO studied 23 states and found that a majority of them had online, searchable provider directories. Only a handful, however, had online directories that indicated whether primary or specialty care providers were accepting new patients.

“The government’s watchdog highlighted a problem, and the good news is that Congress has been working on this very issue, to develop bipartisan solutions that will better equip beneficiaries with the information they need to access health care,” said Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN).

Click HERE to read a copy of the watchdog report.

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