UF investigators to study effects of Florida’s sweeping Medicaid reform

University of Florida researchers have received a $2.5 million contract to evaluate the outcome of Florida’s new high-profile plan to reform Medicaid.

During the five-year study, UF investigators will conduct an organizational analysis of the reform, determine its fiscal impact, and measure the satisfaction, quality of care and outcomes experienced by enrollees and health-care providers as the reform is implemented.

Considered one of the most aggressive state Medicaid reform initiatives, Florida’s plan will attempt to address challenges associated with the rapidly growing program, which currently provides medical coverage for more than 2 million of the state’s low-income families, elderly and people with disabilities, at a cost of $15 billion a year.

“The proposed Medicaid reform program is very interesting,” said R. Paul Duncan, Ph.D., the study’s principal investigator and chairman of the department of health services research, management and policy in UF’s College of Public Health and Health Professions. “Medicaid is a huge, expensive and important program, and every state struggles to manage it effectively. Florida’s reform plan is very ambitious. What happens in Florida will be watched by 49 other states.”

Florida’s Medicaid reform is modeled on private sector managed care plans. Lawmakers hope that under the new program, Medicaid participants will have more flexibility in choosing their health-care providers. In addition, the reform program is intended to foster competition among providers, who will bid on contracts to offer services and be accountable for the enrollees’ care, saving the state money without compromising the quality of care.

The UF research team, which also includes department faculty members Allyson Hall, Ph.D., Christy Lemak, Ph.D., and Niccie McKay, Ph.D., will provide six-month progress reports on the research to the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration.

They will begin work in Broward and Duval counties, where the reform program will first be implemented. Research will extend to Baker, Clay, Nassau and possibly other counties as the reform demonstration expands.

“Broward and Duval are urban counties while the counties in the second wave are more sparsely populated,” Duncan said. “One of the questions we’ll need to answer is ‘will this program work differently in urban and rural settings?”