PBS and NPR for Southwest Florida
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Changing Long-term Care: Medicaid and Managed Care in South Florida

https://www.flickr.com/photos/saltimir/7330554070
Photo: Salvador Altimir via Flickr Creative Commons

A growing number of states, including Florida, are contracting our long-term medical care with what's known as managed care organizations.

It's a way for states to consolidate care for large groups, ranging from pregnant women, to people with specific disabilities, to long-term care for aging Floridians. And it's increasingly changing the way states spend Medicaid dollars, and how the aging or disabled access healthcare. Providers in Southwest Florida say its also limiting their abilities to give patients the care they need.

Findings from a 2016 Kaiser Family Foundation annual survey of Medicaid programs show long-term care programs, paid through Medicaid dollars, are administered through managed care in a significant number of states. Managed care is also expanding in home health care.

Thursday at 1 p.m. on Gulf Coast Live, Luke Neumann, the Senior Director of Service at Palm Garden Healthcare in Sarasota, explains how his long-term care facility handles growing number of patients on managed care policies, and the differences those policies have compared to traditional Medicaid coverage.

Also joining the program is Patti Spears from Oakbrook Health and Rehabilitation Center in LaBelle to talk about how their facility deals with long-term care and managed care patients.
 

And J. Emmett Reed, the executive director of Florida Health Care Association, joins the show to offer a statewide perspective on how managed care is impacting nursing homes in Florida.

Matthew Smith is a reporter and producer of WGCU’s Gulf Coast Live.