Medicaid managed care meets developmental disabilities: proceed with caution

Abstract

This article examines Medicaid managed care's potential impact on people with developmental disabilities. The authors discuss how the philosophy behind the skills/functional model of service provision for people with developmental disabilities is incongruent with the medical model of managed care. They discuss the policy issues that various states have had to face concerning Medicaid managed care's administration of health benefits for people with developmental disabilities. They extrapolate from the research on managed care to formulate potential models that states might use to administer the health benefits for people with developmental disabilities. Finally, the authors propose policy and research agendas to begin investigating Medicaid managed care's potential impact on people with developmental disabilities.