Many Medicare Advantage and Medicaid managed care plans lack robust behavioral health networks, according to an October brief from the HHS Office of the Inspector General.
The OIG analyzed four MA plans and two Medicaid managed care plans across 10 counties. Thirty MA plans and nine Medicaid managed care plans included less than one-quarter of the area’s workforce. Some even encompassed a lower percentage, with eight evaluated plans offering no in-network behavioral health providers.
Along with the networks themselves being limited, over half of the MA plans and one-third of the Medicaid plans had a substantial amount of inactive providers. Nearly three-quarters of these providers should not have been considered in network.
On average, MA plans featured a smaller percentage of the behavioral health workforce and had more inactive providers than the Medicaid plans. Both kinds of plans offered lower percentages of psychologists and social workers compared to psychiatrists.
