A helping hand

Medicaid beneficiaries can be a particularly challenging population to serve. Too often they experience exaggerated health problems that are exacerbated, in many instances, by a long history of being left behind by the health care system. They face an uphill battle getting to doctor's appointments because they lack transportation, or they have trouble negotiating the health delivery system because of limited knowledge about the process and their health conditions. At the same time, the Medicaid-eligible population continues to grow, straining state budgets. To help remove the barriers to care while keeping costs down, Medicaid program administrators have partnered with managed care plans. In response, Medicaid managed care plans have cultivated relationships with grassroots organizations to develop community-centric programs that more effectively reach out to this targeted population of mothers, underserved children and teens, individuals with chronic health conditions, and the culturally and linguistically diverse.