Perils of Pioneering: Monitoring Medicaid Managed Care

This article reviews Federal and State oversight of section 1115 Medicaid managed care demonstrations in Hawaii, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Tennessee from 1994 to 1998. Under Medicaid managed care, the Federal Government and States have had to shift their focus and resources into oversight functions that barely existed in fee-for-service (FFS) Medicaid. We find that managed care monitoring was slow to begin and not always adequate in these demonstrations. While State and Federal monitoring have improved over time, monitoring is not yet at the point of ensuring access and quality.