Reports

A primary original intent of the Medicaid Infrastructure Grant program was to ensure that states could learn from each other as they pursued their individual employment initiatives. With this in mind, George Washington University released this report, outlining options for raising the unearned income limit for the Arkansas Medicaid Buy-In, with projections of increased enrollment. Also included is a separate report explaining the methodology.

This report describes the design and implementation of IndependentChoices, Arkansas' model of Cash & Counseling. Lessons learned in Arkansas are discussed, and cover topics including outreach and enrollment, program features, counseling and fiscal services and program structure.

This study of Consumer Directed Care, Florida's Cash & Counseling Demonstration program for children, examines the ways in which consumer direction affects the cost of Medicaid personal care services, as well as the cost and use of other Medicaid services. Outcome measures were drawn from Medicaid claims data for 1,002 children for the first two years post-enrollment.

This report showcases the findings of qualitative research that was conducted in Arkansas. The objectives of the research included: providing and overview of CCDE, identifying ways to increase referrals to the IndependentChoices program, and identifying professionals to act as ambassadors to the project. Research and findings are identified and discussed.

A summary from the June 2001 symposium titled, “Independent Choices: A National Symposium on Consumer-Direction and Self-Determination for the Elderly and Persons with Disabilities”. Major themes and outcomes are highlighted based on the dialogue from the various speakers including policymakers, program administrators, consumer advocates, service producers, and researchers.

Based primarily on interviews with demonstration staff and other stakeholders, this paper draws lessons from their learning process on the design of basic features, in the Cash and Counseling demonstration programs. The lessons pertain to cooperating with existing service providers; outreach and enrollment; counseling and fiscal services; consumer spending plans and allowances; controlling program costs; and preventing misuse of the allowance and exploitation of the consumer.

This report estimates the effects of Cash & Counseling on the caregivers who were providing the most unpaid assistance to adult beneficiaries when those beneficiaries volunteered to participate in the demonstration and completed a baseline interview. The caregivers in this analysis--identified by beneficiaries as their primary informal caregiver at baseline--were interviewed about 10 months later.

This report assesses the effects of Cash & Counseling on Medicaid beneficiaries' primary informal caregivers and describes the experiences of their directly hired workers. The abstract (free) and full report (subscription required) are available.

This study assesses the effects of consumer direction on the experiences and well-being of the primary informal caregivers of children who participated in Florida's Cash & Counseling demonstration. Instead of Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS) waiver benefits, the demonstration program provided a monthly allowance and let parents hire providers and manage the other services and goods their child needed.

Arkansas’ Cash & Counseling Demonstration program, IndependentChoices, was studied to examine the ways in which consumer-direction affects the cost of Medicaid personal care services, as well as the cost and use of other Medicaid and Medicare services. The study also examines the affect the program had on service utilization.