AmeriHealth Mercy Health Plan Cited in AHIP
Report On the Value of Medicaid Managed Care
Demonstrates Costs Savings for States
August 11, 2004 - Philadelphia (PA) - A report prepared
by the Lewin Group and released last week by America's Health
Insurance Plans (AHIP) offers strong evidence that Medicaid
managed care provides significant cost savings for states and
increases access to quality health care for Medicaid recipients.
The report included data from a plan managed by AmeriHealth
Mercy, one of the largest Medicaid-only managed care organizations
in the nation.
The report analyzed 14 studies on the value realized when states
have implemented Medicaid managed care programs in place of
the traditional fee-for-service (FFS) programs. The results
of the analysis show that Medicaid managed care programs provide
high quality, cost-effective care.
A highlight of the report includes results from Passport
Health Plan, a plan that is managed by AmeriHealth Mercy.
The results provide some evidence that Medicaid managed care
savings could be significant for the Supplemental Security Income
(SSI) and SSI-related population. Medicaid managed care for
Passport's SSI population made up 25 to 34 percent of total
enrollment and accounted for 53 to 61 percent of the savings
achieved from 1999 to 2003. Other studies show that, since its
inception, Passport has demonstrated more than $110 million
in cost savings for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. In addition
to Passport, Select
Health of South Carolina, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary
of AmeriHealth Mercy, showed a combined savings of nearly $4
million over a two-year period.
The AHIP report also highlighted pharmacy management as another
area where Medicaid programs showed considerable savings. AmeriHealth
Mercy's pharmacy management program, PerformRx,
which serves over 890,000 Medicaid members in five states, demonstrates
these savings by maintaining an average pharmacy cost trend
of under 8 percent, versus the national trend of 15 percent
in the Medicaid sector.
"The results from the AHIP report clearly support what
we have always believed - that managed care works in Medicaid,"
said Daniel J. Hilferty, AmeriHealth Mercy's President and Chief
Executive Officer. "Like the numerous success stories of
the plans in the report, the AmeriHealth Mercy Family of Companies and its family of
companies have demonstrated their value for more than 20 years
by giving Medicaid recipients access to the health care system,
providing preventive care, offering case management and disease
management programs, supporting community health initiatives
and saving taxpayer money at the same time."
With more than 20 years of experience exclusively serving the
Medicaid population, the AmeriHealth Mercy Family of Companies and its affiliates comprise
the largest family of Medicaid managed care plans in the United
States, touching the lives of more than one million members
in seven states, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kentucky, South Carolina,
Virginia, California and Arizona. For more information, please
visit AmeriHealth
Mercy or PerformRx.
View the AHIP Lewin Group Report: www.ahip.org/redirect/LewinMedicaidManagedReportJuly2004.pdf
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