Medicaid Managed Care Slow To Catch on in Rural Areas

ROCKVILLE, Md—The explosive overall growth of enrollees in Medicaid managed care is not occurring in rural America, according to a study conducted for the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR).

The study, led by Rebecca T. Slifkin, PhD, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, involved telephone interviews conducted in 1997 with Medicaid officials in all 50 states. It showed that Medicaid enrollees in just over half of all rural US counties were covered by some type of Medicaid managed care, compared with nearly three-fourths of urban counties.