Center for Health Care Strategies, Inc.

The Center for Health Care Strategies worked with the New York State Department of Health to maximize the potential of the State’s Chronic Illness Demonstration Projects (CIDP).

In New York State, 20% of Medicaid beneficiaries drive almost 80% of total Medicaid spending. These patients often have multiple chronic conditions or disabilities and do not receive the coordinated care they require. As a result, patients are often forced to cope with costly and poor quality care. New York State responded to the need to better coordinate the fee-for-service health care system by authorizing the Chronic Illness Demonstration Projects (CIDP). Under the CIDP, the State Department of Health anticipates funding five demonstrations targeted at high-need, high-cost, fee-for-service Medicaid beneficiaries with multiple chronic diseases.

The Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS), in collaboration with the Department of Health, maximized CIDP’s potential to generate sustainable and replicable models to reach thousands of Medicaid beneficiaries statewide. CHCS’s project, Rethinking Care for New York’s High-Opportunity Patients: (1) assisted the Department of Health in the design, implementation, and evaluation of the overall CIDP project; and (2) provided technical assistance to CIDP sites in developing and testing replicable coordinated care models for Medicaid’s most costly fee-for-service beneficiaries. This project was evaluated to determine whether the intervention changed patterns of health care use, reduced costs, and improved health outcomes.