Health Topics

• Data Development
• Health Care Reform
• Health Information Technology
• Medicaid and CHIP
• Medicare
• Mental Health and Substance Abuse
• Payment Policies and Costs
• Public and Population Health
• Quality and Health System Functioning
• State Health Policy

Delivering Quality Care to Medicaid Beneficiaries with Schizophrenia

High quality outpatient care can make an important difference in the treatment of Medicaid beneficiaries with schizophrenia. Yet delivering this care presents a number of challenges. In order to understand how the quality of care can be improved, Mathematica developed, field tested, pilot tested, and prepared for National Quality Forum endorsement 10 testing quality measures to assess the quality and appropriateness of outpatient care for this population.

Together with staff from the National Committee for Quality Assurance, we conducted a targeted literature review to identify potential measure concepts and topics. Incorporating input from an advisory group and project consultants, wedrafted measure specifications and. field tested the measure specifications using focus groups with stakeholders. After incorporating their feedback we then pilot tested the measures using Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX) data to examine their feasibility. After measure specifications are pilot tested, the project  produced documentation to support endorsement of the measures by the National Quality Forum.