Fla. Medicaid patients could join pilot project
TALLAHASSEE (AP) – Medicaid patients living in Tampa or Gainesville could soon be part of a pilot project that would overhaul how they get health care.
State lawmakers are considering yet another change to the way the nearly $16 billion state-federal health care program for the poor works. Four years ago, legislators agreed to a controversial Medicaid reform pilot program for Broward and Duval counties that forced patients to get their care through a managed care organization instead of going straight to a doctor.
A House panel on Wednesday approved a measure that would steer patients in Alachua and Hillsborough counties into a new network that links medical schools with primary care clinics. The University of Florida in Gainesville and the University of South Florida have medical schools and medical school deans said they support the concept.
Rep. Ed Homan, R-Tampa and an orthopedic surgeon, said he wants to create an alternative to the traditional Medicaid program and the pilot program begun by then-Gov. Jeb Bush. He said the state doesn’t get enough information to even know if the reform program works as first promised. Bush pushed the reform program as a way to control costs and improve the quality of health care for the state’s more than 2 million Medicaid patients.
“We have no proof that our strategies to rein in the costs are working and we have no evidence that our health care outcomes are improving,” said Homan.
Homan’s bill, however, is opposed by health maintenance organizations, or HMOs, which now treat the majority of patients in the Medicaid program.