Telephone Outreach to Increase Colon Cancer Screening in Medicaid Managed Care Organizations: A Randomized Controlled Trial

The Article in Brief

Telephone Outreach to Increase Colon Cancer Screening in Medicaid Managed Care Organizations: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Allen J. Dietrich , and colleagues

Background Health plans are uniquely positioned to deliver outreach to their members. This study explores whether telephone outreach delivered by Medicaid managed care organization staff can increase colorectal cancer screening (CRC) among publicly insured urban women.

What This Study Found A previously proven telephone outreach intervention delivered by research-based staff to increase CRC screening can be successfully translated to the health plan arena. In this study, staff of a Medicaid managed care organization increases CRC screening rates by one-third to nearly double among publicly insured urban women. The study, involving 2,240 women overdue for screening and insured by 1 of 3 New York City Medicaid managed care organizations, finds intervention women are significantly more likely than usual care women to become up-to-date on CRC screening. Increases vary from 1 percent to 14 percent across participating organizations, with the overall increase driven by increases at one particular Medicaid managed care organization.

Implications

• Medicaid managed care organizations, key players in the delivery of health care to publicly insured and underserved populations, can successfully implement interventions to increase CRC screening, reducing health care disparities among a difficult to reach population.