A podcast interview with the lead author of a manuscript on Medi-Cal beneficiaries' experiences with fee-for-service and Medi-Cal managed care was released in October 2011. Carrie Graham, Ph.D., MGS, was interviewed by the Journal of Healthcare for the Poor and Underserved about her research team's study assessing differences in beneficiaries' perceived quality of care in the two systems.

On June 1, 2011, the State of California began transitioning approximately 380,000 seniors and people with disabilities from a fee-for-service system to a managed care Medicaid system in 16 counties, as part of an effort to reduce Medicaid spending. The researchers from Health Research for Action at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health found that seniors and persons with disabilities who had voluntarily enrolled in Medicaid managed care rated their care better or the same as it was in fee-for-service Medicaid. Implications for future evaluations of this transition are also discussed in the article.

The Journal of Heathcare for the Poor and Underserved had pre-released the manuscript last June because of the timeliness of the topic and the journal will publish the article in its November 2011 issue.

Download the podcast interview with Dr. Graham at http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/podcasts/20111006.mp3, or the full article at http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/announcements/archive.html.