A new report released by the Iowa Department of Human Services showed that, although the state’s Medicaid ranks now stand at more than 617,000 people, the number of Iowans enrolled in chronic care coordination services has fallen since AmeriHealth Caritas’s market exit last December.

The report also indicated that, over the past year, two of Iowa’s managed care providers reported increases in critical incidents — those involving physical harm, emergency mental health treatment, or death — occurring to beneficiaries under the Home and Community Based Services Waiver.

The waiver, wrote The Gazette‘s Michaela Ramm, “is provided to older members or those with disabilities who need services to allow them to stay in their homes.”

In their fiscal fourth quarter statement, UnitedHealthcare (UHC) reported 1,945 critical incidents for its total of 18,145 beneficiaries under the waiver and Amerigroup reported 558 critical incidents among its 5,655 members.

“In the previous report, covering the fiscal year third quarter, UnitedHealthcare reported 1,916 critical incidents for its 18,089 members and Amerigroup reported 184 among its 5,535 members,” Ramm noted.

Iowa’s Medicaid managed care bureau chief, Liz Matney, seemed to downplay any links between lacking care coordination and increases in critical incidents.

“Sometimes, this isn’t a reflection of anything bad happening in the system when you look at data over time,” Matney told The Gazette. “(Since) we started tracking these incidents, it’s pretty consistent across the past several years, especially population by population.”

Read the full story here, in Cedar Rapids’ The Gazette.