Change in Texas Medicaid payments helps cut number of premature births
Even though the health risks to babies born before they reach full term at 39 weeks have long been recognized, nearly 1 in 10 babies in the United States is born prematurely. Texas decided to try to change that.
In 2011, the Texas Medicaid program was the first in the country to take steps to curb elective early deliveries by refusing to pay providers who induced early labor or performed a cesarean section that wasn't medically necessary before 39 weeks. In the first two years after that, Texas reduced the rate of unnecessary early delivery by as much as 14 percent. The state's efforts also led to an increase in the length of pregnancies by nearly a week, with infants weighing on average nearly half a pound more, a new study found.
Those reimbursement changes were part of a Texas Medicaid payment reform law. Before it took effect, 10.63 percent of Medicaid single births in the state were early elective deliveries, according to the study, which was published in the March issue of Health Affairs. After the law passed, the percentage of unnecessary early deliveries declined 2.03 percentage points.
About half of the decline was due to the payment reforms, while the rest could be attributed to other efforts to reduce early deliveries, unrelated trends and the economy, said Heather Dahlen, a research associate at Medica Research Institute in Minnetonka, Minn., and the study's lead author.
Read more: http://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/texas/story/2017/mar/23/change-texas-medicaid-payments-helps-cut-number-premature-births/666624/