Citation

Scheeringa MS, Singer AM, Mai TA, Miron D. J. Public Child Welf. 2020; 14(2): 161-173.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/15548732.2018.1537904

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the level of access that youths in child welfare have to mental health providers in a single state. Mystery shoppers called every provider publicly advertised in Medicaid managed care organization networks.

RESULTS showed that 25.4% of the advertised network was able to schedule a new appointment for a child in Department of Children and Family Services guardianship. There were 9.7 accessible providers of any discipline (MD, PhD, or licensed masters-level clinician) per 10,000 Medicaid-enrolled youths in the population. The level of access to MDs was 4.1 times lower than the nationally recommended level.

Language: en

Keywords

access to care; Child welfare; insurance networks; Medicaid