CRANSTON – Rhode Island’s RIte Care, the publicly funded managed health care program for children and families with low incomes, outperforms similar programs in all other states in quality, according to a report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Rhode Island was the only state to achieve higher-performing status overall and in all three domains: perinatal and infant care, well child care and adolescent well care, the report said.
Only six states, including Rhode Island, were considered “higher performing” in the study, which also looked at measures in the categories of management of acute and chronic conditions, and dental, stated a news release from the R.I. Executive Office of Health & Human Services.
The other states were New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and Michigan.
Rhode Island achieved scores in the top quartile for 13 of the study’s 15 measures, including all the measures related to perinatal and infant care, well child care, adolescent well care and management of acute and chronic conditions. No other state achieved top quartile scores in more than nine measures.
“Rhode Island is the national leader in providing comprehensive, high-quality care” to children and families with low incomes,” R.I. Secretary of Health and Human Services Elizabeth Roberts said in a statement. “RIte Care provides high-quality care for more than 146,000 Rhode Islanders, including nearly 100,000 kids. This study from CMS shows that Rhode Island has built an effective model for managed care and confirms that we are reinventing Medicaid from a place of strength.”
State Medicaid Director Dr. Deidre Gifford said that RIte Care offers a “model for quality and coordination that we should build upon, particularly as Rhode Island moves to reinvent Medicaid.”
RIte Care provides comprehensive health care coverage for qualified parents, children and pregnant women through Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island or UnitedHealthcare Community Plan. The program covers primary and preventive care, acute care, behavioral health care, hospital care and pharmacy, among others, according to a news release.
