Hendry Recognized For Medicaid Cost Cutting Pilot Program

LABELLE, FL. – The National Association of Counties awarded Hendry County with a 2016 Achievement Award for its pilot program “The Healthy Hendry Health Coaching Program” in the category of Human Services, engaging the county's Medicaid clients.

Funding Medicaid is currently a substantial and growing portion of Hendry County’s budget. Hendry County ranks # 1 in the State for the most eligible enrollees per capita with an eligible population of 13,704 of 37,895 total or 33.89%.

County Administrator Charles Chapman says of the county's agreement with HHHCP, and it's director Rick Griffiths, "This is an outsourced public/private partnership with HHHCP, the county has no overhead or budgetary expense. HHHCP has an agreement with Hendry County as a pilot program. They will not be paid unless they can provide proven correlated and actual savings in our Medicaid bill with the State of Florida."

The Healthy Hendry Health Coaching Program is a Medicaid patient centered program designed to engage patients through Health Coaching. Hendry County is faced with how to serve the unique needs of the most challenging and costly segments of the county’s Medicaid population. When patients are an active participant in their own health care, they are more likely to follow through with treatment and receive their care at the appropriate healthcare setting.

How The Program Will Work - 60/40 Split With Private Company If Savings Pan Out

Mr. Chapman says a data set is being collected by HHHCP to be used to prove the theory that with managed care, utilization amongst Medicaid users can reduce costs to Medicaid. 

He says, "If a Medicaid patient went to their primary care physician, took their prescriptions on time as directed and made it to their follow up appointments, then the cost of the patient ultimately goes down. The outreach is to be accomplished by phone, email and/or text message to Medicaid enrollees by a HHHCP call center.

"Once a statistically significant data set is collected, the data (in compliance with HIPAA) will be used to provide justification for a proposed legislative bill to the State of Florida. This bill is purposed to establish a savings credit based on the reduction in costs from utilization.

"If Hendry County residents elect to use the HHHCP and the data collected is statistically significant to justify the bill language, and if the legislation giving discounts on the Medicaid bill for reduced utilization is approved by the Florida Legislature, then Hendry County may realize savings on its Medicaid bill.

"There are no hard costs to Hendry County until such a time as a reduction/savings occurs in our Medicaid costs. Once a savings occurs, Hendry County will split the savings margin with the parent company of HHHCP, also known as CSI with 60% going to CSI and 40% retained by Hendry County."
HHHCP is demonstrating that improvements and efficiencies and savings can be obtained through engagement with the patient, and is budget-positive for Hendry County. Since the program began seeing Medicaid Patients there has been a 50-80% reduction in Emergency room visits, impatient visits, and patient cost, and a 70% increase in Primary Care visits.

Rick Griffiths, HHHCP Director of Healthcare Services, said “We are honored to be recognized for the success of “The Healthy Hendry Health Coaching Program”. The Program’s success in improving medical outcomes with reduced total expense with no patient dissatisfaction is due to the patient centered engagement program combined with an extensive collaboration with our medical provider partners including Florida Community Health Centers and the Hendry Regional Medical Center, and the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. We are confident that our success in Hendry County can be replicated throughout the State of Florida as well as the entire United States.”