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

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was included. A telephone number was provided for respondents to call in case they had
any questions.
Distribution of the Questionnaire
Coordinators in each of the four cities distributed the questionnaire to families in a
variety of ways. The majority of questionnaires were distributed by mail through family
mailing lists and through cooperating programs, although other methods included leaving
questionnaires in specialty and hospital clinics with drop boxes for questionnaire return,
and distributing questionnaires at family meetings, in community meetings, and in person.
In a few cases, questionnaires were completed through a telephone interview. It is difficult
to report the return rate, since the methods of distribution varied widely and we are
uncertain how many surveys were distributed.-
A total of 330 surveys were returned by the time of data analysis, of which 323
were determined to be from families with children fitting our description of children with
special health care needs; 104 from Seattle, 117 from Atlanta, 52 from Denver and 50
from Des Moines. The sample of families was not selected in a controlled manner.
The Results of the Survey
Who were the Families Responding?
The Family Voices surveys reached a diverse group of families, as shown in Table
1, with variations by site roughly representative of the composition of the different cities.
Household incomes reported were from every category, with 36% of respondents overall
indicating incomes under S30,000. One quarter of respondents reported having a high
school education or less; another 21% reported "some college." A small percentage of
respondents responded that their primary language was not English.
The highest percentage of families responding had health coverage for their child
through the parents' employment (63%). Twenty eight percent of the families responding
received coverage for their child through <strong>Medicaid</strong> and another 3.8% reported coverage
through other state supported plans. In more than a quarter of the families responding,
the child qualified for SSI Families were asked whether the health insurance they had for
their child was either a Preferred Provider Organization, a Health Maintenance
Organization, the child was not in a managed care plan, or other. The majority of the