Twenty years ago, Michigan elected to separate its Medicaid managed care programs for physical health and behavioral health. Now, the two programs are taking steps toward providing more integrated care and better care coordination, with the ultimate aim of improving outcomes.

“When we started, we were far apart,” Meridian president Sean Kendall told Crain’s Detroit Business‘s Jay Greene. “The HMOs offered a fee-for-service model and the community mental health [providers] wanted a sub-capitated model.”

“We met in the middle,” Kendall said. “We have a mixed model to develop the program and allow for person-centered directed care.”

One of the primary areas of focus for Michigan’s three ongoing care coordination pilot programs has been to combine physical and behavioral health clinical data to proactively identify more beneficiaries who would benefit from active case management.

In doing so, Meridian found that up to twenty percent of its beneficiaries fit criteria for additional case management.

Learn more here, in Crain’s Detroit Business.