Preliminary Thoughts On Restructuring Medicaid to Promote Adolescent Health

by Harriette B. Fox, Stephanie J. Limb, and Margaret A. McManus, January 2007

This issue brief examines state Medicaid benefit and payment policies affecting adolescents and concludes that they are inadequate to support the type of care that adolescents require. It includes a proposal for an enhanced set of health promotion and primary care benefits designed specifically for adolescents that can be offered through EPSDT or as an alternative benefit package under the Deficit Reduction Act and suggestions for possible changes to payment policies to support comprehensive preventive and primary care service delivery for adolescents.