Medicaid Council update

The agenda for last week’s Medicaid Council meeting was very full. We reviewed DSS’s latest ConneCT Dashboard. More clients are using the online system, but more are also walking into a DSS office. The backlog of documents to be scanned is gone and last month the online system was never down. However, the call abandonment rate, still unacceptably high at 59% in May, and minutes waiting on hold until hanging up (13 minutes) are not moving. DSS is working on a call-back option.

We also heard about encouraging improvements in access to dental care in HUSKY. The number of participating dentists is up from 349 in October 2008, before the carve out, to 1,855 last year. Two out of three CT dentists now participates in Medicaid. The 2013 dental care utilization rate of HUSKY children (67%) and adults (48%) is higher than the national average and rising every year. Per member costs are declining and more of the total funding is being spent on preventive care over time.

AccessHealthCT gave an update and responded to questions about privacy and security given the breach a week earlier of names, social security numbers and dates of birth for about 400 applicants. It is not known how many of those 400 are Medicaid members. Maximus is moving to a paperless system to avoid the problem that happened last week. Concerns were raised about security and a policy decision not to allow people to opt-out of the AccessHealth Analytics APCD.