Medicaid Managed Care - U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging

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the program, agency nurses work with the providers and patients to facilitate care in home
settings and to avert preventable hospital readmissions. For Fiscal Year 1994-95, the
agency documented savings of $11.2 million for 2,349 cases. 3 ' The State legislature was
impressed enough to authorize funding for 46 new positions to support the program; this
at a time when the agency's capitated managed care program was moving full speed
ahead.
Finally, within individual fee-for-service sectors, one can find some efforts to minimize
the adverse effects associated with downsizing. Striking in this regard is the Oregon
agency's initiative in using prisoners to respond to basic telephone inquiries by providers
and beneficiaries. Facilitated by a Statewide referendum that called for prisoners to be
engaged in training or employment, this initiative has enabled a downsized provider
relations staff to focus on more complex inquiries and to reduce its backlog of billing
exceptions.
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