Children's Servide Use During the Transition to PCCM in Two States

This study examines whether use of pri-mary, preventive, or emergency carechanged as primary care case management(PCCM) programs for children were imple-mented in Alabama and Georgia. Usingclaims data we track the same childrenover time, and control for geographic avail-ability of Medicaid providers, which alsochanged over this period. A decline in use ofall three types of care was found to be asso-ciated with PCCM implementation, withuse of primary and preventive care fallingbelow national averages and recommendeduse rates. Family difficulties in shifting toexclusive use of unfamiliar providers is theprimary reason for the decline in use rates.