The future presents significant challenges and opportunities for Medicaid directors, who can leverage their purchasing power to influence improvements in health care quality, delivery and value.
Six Medicaid directors have been chosen to participate as fellows in the 2011 class of the Medicaid Leadership Institute. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) supports this initiative to enhance the leadership capacity of Medicaid directors so their programs can serve as national models for high-quality, cost-effective care.
According to the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS), by 2014, Medicaid will become the largest healthcare purchaser in the nation, with the addition of 16 million to 20 million new beneficiaries. That will present significant challenges and opportunities for Medicaid directors, who can leverage their purchasing power to influence improvements in healthcare quality, delivery and value.
“Each Medicaid director is essentially the CEO of one of the largest health insurance companies in his or her state,” says Melanie Bella, senior vice president at CHCS and director of the Medicaid Leadership Institute. “And with health reform, the program will expand even more, to serve as many as one quarter of all Americans. “As such, the biggest challenge facing directors is to maximize opportunities to expand access, improve quality and control costs, particularly for the program’s highest-need and highest-cost patient subsets.”
Medicaid directors competitively selected to participate in the executive leadership development program are:
In this latest episode of Tuning In to the C-Suite podcast, Briana Contreras, an editor with MHE had the pleasure of meeting Loren McCaghy, director of consulting, health and consumer engagement and product insight at Accenture, to discuss the organization's latest report on U.S. consumers switching healthcare providers and insurance payers.
Listen
Price Transparency Reveals Multiple Dimensions of Healthcare Inequities Beyond Just Patients
October 23rd 2024Pricing data shows that doctors serving these communities facing economic challenges are paid less by insurers, effectively penalizing doctors for working in areas where people most need their care.
Read More
In our latest "Meet the Board" podcast episode, Managed Healthcare Executive Editors caught up with editorial advisory board member, Eric Hunter, CEO of CareOregon, to discuss a number of topics, one including the merger that never closed with SCAN Health Plan due to local opposition from Oregonians.
Listen