The Department of Health and Hospitals has announced a new plan to help ensure children in Louisiana are properly immunized.

Louisiana Medicaid is implementing a pay-for-performance initiative in which doctors will receive enhanced reimbursements for making sure children receive their immunization shots. Under the plan, doctors will receive an increased monthly payment of $0.25 per Medicaid patient under age 19 if the doctor participates in the electronic immunization registry, LINKS. In addition, those with immunization rates above national norms can earn additional incentive payments.

“We hope this measure will encourage doctors to take every opportunity to see that children are properly vaccinated, including implementing systems such as LINKS to better manage their patient groups,” said DHH Secretary Dr. Fred Cerise. “Immunizing children is one of the most important strategies to improving Louisiana’s overall health.”

The most recent statistics from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention show Louisiana ranking 32nd in the country for children up-to-date on vaccines. The state moved up 11 places from the previous year, when it was ranked 46th in the nation.

Over the past years, Louisiana has taken many steps to improve childhood immunization rates. This includes requiring that children be fully vaccinated before entering school; conducting special, after-hours and weekends immunization clinics; creating a data system that allows doctors and the state to better monitor immunizations and eliminating the need for appointments at parish health clinics for vaccines.

“Continually seeking ways to improve our rate of childhood vaccines is a key goal of ours, as is paying physicians a competitive reimbursement rate. This effort furthers both of these goals,” Cerise said.

A full list of eligibility requirements and pay tiers for the new pay-for-performance initiative can be found at www.lamedicaid.com under the heading “CommunityCARE Immunization P4P Initiative.”

The details for this initiative and the supplemental payment methodology have not been finalized and are subject to change.

Submitted by Rob Anderson. Filed under General Topics

Comments

We must go to where families and children frequent to get information out to them. I would suggest collaboration between DHH, La. Dept. of Education, La. State PTA. WE have wonderful parents involved in PTA at state and local level who can help get resource info out to families and the community. Also school based immunization clinics at certain times of the year.
Cynthia Hemingway on February 23rd, 2007

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