Challenge

VSC was engaged by a State Medicaid Department to evaluate its Comprehensive Primary Care (CPC) intervention. CPC is a team-based care delivery model led by a primary care practice that comprehensively manages patients’ health needs, with the goal of improving quality of care while reducing costs. A prior evaluation of the CPC program's early implementation period suggested that the program benefited patients. We were approached to evaluate the ongoing impact of the CPC intervention on patient outcomes, as the program expanded beyond its early adopters to a wider group of providers. VSC designed a study whose sample comprised roughly 3.5 million Medicaid members attributed to approximately 1,000 primary care practices over the span of 3 years, including practices enrolled in the CPC program and a set of non-CPC practices selected as a control group. The nearly two-year evaluation assessed whether the CPC program had a significant impact on change over time in roughly 30 outcomes, including quality measures, utilization, and costs of care. The evaluation also identified characteristics of CPC practices that facilitated observed improvements in performance.

Results

VSC negotiated a seamless transition from the prior evaluator, and consistently provided the State with high-quality, on-time deliverables, including an evaluation design plan, data acquisition and transfer protocols, data inventory and validation, development of analytic databases, analysis of patient attribution, and reports of preliminary and final study findings. Our efforts will inform programmatic modifications and future policy funding and expansion decisions.