JEFFERSON CITY—Senate Leader Ron Richard, R-Joplin, announced today 13 appointments to the Task Force for Examining Statewide Medicaid Delivery Models. The task force of providers, payers, consumer groups, and lawmakers will develop a strategy for implementing a statewide healthcare delivery model and offer recommendations for legislation to the General Assembly.

“We have some serious inefficiencies in our current fee-for-service system,” said Richard. “We need to start transitioning away from the fee-for-service system and give serious consideration to the more efficient coordinated delivery models that produce better health outcomes and provide high quality, cost effective care to Missourians.”

The task force is a result of a compromise in House Bill 11 between legislators who wanted a statewide managed care model and those who needed more information. Richard said other states across the country are having success under the coordinated care models. He also said coordinated care won’t change eligibility or the population currently being served, but it will help keep healthcare services affordable and accountable to the taxpayers who fund them.

Task Force Committee Members Include:

• Shannon Bagley – Home State Health
• Cale Bradford – Pyramid Home Health Services
• Denise Cross – Cornerstones of Care
• Dr. Randy Jotte – Associate Professor, Washington University School of Medicine; Emergency Physician, Barnes Jewish Hospital
• Brooks Miller – Jordan Valley Health Center
• Danny O’Neill – Missouri Health Plus
• Joe Pierle – Missouri Primary Care Association
• Chad Moore –Children’s Mercy Kansas City

Senate Members Include:

• Senator David Sater, R-Cassville, Co-Chair
• Senator Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia
• Senator Bob Onder, R-Lake St. Louis
• Senator Jeanie Riddle, R-Callaway
• Senator Scott Sifton, D-Affton

Coordinated care models are healthcare delivery systems designed to manage costs and utilization of healthcare services through contract arrangements between state Medicaid agencies and managed care organizations.