Washington Medicaid Integrated Medical & Behavioral MCOs Fail to Outperform Carve-Outs in Behavioral Health Access In First 2 Years

Financial integration of medical and behavioral health services at the Medicaid managed care plan level may be insufficient to drive large delivery system changes in terms of behavioral health service utilization, quality of care, employment, and criminal justice involvement, according to an analysis of data from Washington State when it phased out a behavioral health carve-out between 2014 and 2019. During that period, beneficiary outcomes were essentially the same before and after the transition from a Medicaid behavioral health carve-out to integrated Medicaid managed care organization (MCO) plans. Based on claims data for nearly 1.5 million beneficiaries . . .