Preventive service use and Medicaid managed care in New York City

Objective: To examine the effect of managed care enrollment on the use of p reventive services among New York City's Medicaid population, Study Design: An analysis of survey results from a sample of Medicaid benef iciaries in managed care plans and in traditional Medicaid. Methods: This study is based on a 1994 survey of 1038 Medicaid beneficiarie s enrolled in any of 5 managed care plans and a comparison group of 410 ben eficiaries in traditional Medicaid in New York City. The survey data are us ed to examine the effect of managed care on the self-reported use of Pap sm ears, mammograms, and infant immunizations, We performed bivariate analysis to compare the use of preventive services between managed care enrollees a nd beneficiaries in traditional Medicaid. We also used multivariate logisti c analysis to explore this comparison, controlling for factors that may con found the relationship, Results: Medicaid beneficiaries in managed care were no more or less likely to receive infant immunizations, Pap smears, or mammograms than those in t he traditional Medicaid program, Conclusions: Our analysis suggests that Medicaid managed care and the tradi tional program performed the same in getting appropriate preventive service s to beneficiaries.