Moise Brutus is a 22-year-old Florida Medicaid beneficiary who became a triple-amputee as the result of a motorcycle crash in 2010. Brutus hadn't had any experience with Medicaid or other government programs until after the wreck, which left him unable to work or afford private health coverage. by KHI News Service

Kansas is part of a new wave of states moving to expand managed care to higher numbers of their Medicaid patients.

Gov. Sam Brownback’s KanCare plan, unveiled in November, would begin moving virtually all the state’s 380,000 Medicaid enrollees into managed care plans on Jan. 1.

Nationally, the first wave into Medicaid managed care began in the early 1990s. By 2008, more than 70 percent of Medicaid beneficiaries nationwide were enrolled, largely as the result of state or local government mandates.

There are fewer studies than one might expect of the effectiveness of Medicaid managed care, experts say. And those that have been done have shown mostly mixed results with respect to health outcomes and cost savings. A working paper released in July 2011 by the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research apparently was the first study to examine Medicaid managed care costs over an extended period from all 50 states.

The authors reported that the 13 years of data they reviewed suggested “shifting Medicaid recipients into managed care plans did not reduce Medicaid spending in the typical state.”

Despite the uncertain or uneven results reported by researchers, states have forged ahead with managed care.

Generally left out of the first wave of managed care plans were Medicaid recipients who were elderly or disabled and required long-term services. They tend to be the most needy and thus most costly beneficiaries, and the new wave of expansions, including KanCare, would bring more of them into the plans.

State officials, here and elsewhere, have concluded or hope that including them in managed care will offer new opportunities for savings or at least assure more predictable costs.

KHI News Service reporters have been closely following developments surrounding the KanCare plan. As part of our reporting over the past few months, we have interviewed dozens of people involved in various ways with Medicaid managed care expansions across the nation.

What follows are various perspectives gleaned from some of those interviews.

A Florida perspective

Moise Brutus is a 22-year-old Miami, Fla., man who became a triple-amputee as the result of a motorcycle crash in 2010.

Brutus said he was working as an assistant manager at an auto dealership before the accident and didn't have any experience with Medicaid or other government programs until after the wreck, which left him unable to work or afford private health coverage.

After a few months on Medicaid, while he was still in the early stages of recovery, the state of Florida sent him a letter saying he needed to enroll in a managed care plan. He ignored the letter and subsequently was “auto assigned” by the state to a plan run by WellCare.

Florida incrementally has been moving more of its Medicaid beneficiaries into managed care, and 85 percent of them are expected to be in managed care plans by 2014.

Brutus said WellCare assigned him a case manager. He spurned her initial efforts to contact him by telephone because he was experiencing profound depression that led him to consider suicide after he had sought “stump revision” surgery through traditional Medicaid and was denied.

“I was lost,” he said. “At that point I was still in a lot of pain physically and emotionally.”

Ultimately, his mother responded to the case manager’s calls and the woman was able to connect with Brutus.

“She took it on herself — kind of like she was on a mission to save the world,” Brutus said of the case manager. “She got me in touch with the doctors I needed, got me the medication I needed, because some of the medications I was taking Medicaid didn't cover. So, she pretty much had to get me an override so I could get the medications, and I went in and did the stump revision. WellCare took care of that.”

He said the case manager also arranged for him to get an additional month of physical rehabilitation sessions.

“To sort of make a long story short, I'm not on any medication at all. I'm walking. They took care of all my prosthetics, my rehab, teaching me how to walk. They got me a new bionic hand. I'm actually the first person to get that approved from Medicaid,” Brutus said.

“I can honestly say I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for WellCare and (the case manager). They're not perfect, but they certainly have helped me a lot. Now, I’m going back to school and I’m pretty much done with rehab. I’m doing some occupational therapy and I’m walking on my own with no assistive device,” he said.

WellCare experiences

“Would I actually recommend (Medicaid managed care) to anyone? From my experience I would, but speaking logically I'm sure not every story has as happy an ending as mine,” Brutus said.

In June 2011, Brutus was among those who testified at a public hearing on Florida’s Medicaid managed care makeover. His comments for this article were from a March 21 telephone interview with KHI News Service.

A WellCare employee helped arrange the interview.

“A lady actually called me (from WellCare prior to the interview) and spoke with me and she pretty much told me to just tell it how it is, that if I feel like I don't agree with something to definitely let you know,” he said.

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→ A Texas perspective

→ A national perspective

→ A Georgia perspective

→ A Kentucky perspective

→ A Indiana perspective