Barriers and Facilitators to Coordinating Care With High-Risk, High-Cost Disabled Medicaid Beneficiaries: Perspectives of Frontline Staff and Participating Clients

This evaluation was designed to examine the perspectives of 15 frontline staff who implemented a managed care program and 154 high-risk, high-cost disabled Medicaid clients who were participants in the program. Results indicated that positive relationships between staff and clients played a key role in facilitating program implementation. Challenges included finding ways to provide a wide breadth of services including food, shelter, and transportation; handling difficulties following from staff turnover; and creating transitions of care for clients to community health clinics. Staff identified training in motivational interviewing and having both nurse care managers and social workers collaboratively deliver the intervention as among the most powerful components of the program. Staff and clients expressed high levels of satisfaction with the program, and clients believed they were experiencing positive impacts of the program. Lessons learned from this study may inform the design of services as the Affordable Care Act continues to unfold.