Managed health care for Medicaid enrollees: the Philadelphia model

HealthPASS, a program of capitated managed care for 82,000 Medicaid enrollees in a defined geographic area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is administered by Healthcare Management Alternatives, Inc. (HMA), a minority-owned corporation, under a multiyear contract with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. HMA has striven to improve care to this low-income community by mounting innovative campaigns to encourage early access to health care, ongoing health education, and aggressive outreach and follow-up, in addition to specific projects designed to reduce infant mortality, expand Head Start, and bolster pediatric care. The program has been judged independently to provide high-quality service cost-effectively.