Alabama Medicaid Moving To Risk-Based Regional Care Organizations

On February 9, 2016, the Alabama Medicaid Agency announced that its Medicaid waiver to implement regional care organizations (RCOs) was approved by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). During the demonstration, the state will transition from its current fee-for-service (FFS) delivery system to statewide managed care through risk-bearing, provider-based RCOs that will provide integrated physical and behavioral health services. The RCOs will operate in five distinct regions of the state and affected populations, about 650,000 individuals, will be assigned to an RCO based on geographic location. All RCOs will complete financial solvency . . .