How are States Measuring It?: National Survey Findings on State Access Monitoring Efforts for Fee-for-Service Medicaid Enrollees

For many years, barriers to access have been a significant concern in the Medicaid program. In November 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a Final Rule that requires states to submit access monitoring plans every three years beginning in October 2016. State access monitoring plans must focus on five categories of service and three domains for measuring and monitoring access to care. This article presents findings from the first national survey that examines what states were doing to measure access to fee-for-service Medicaid care prior to the Final Rule. Our findings show states generally collected some type of access to care measure, relied on a multitude of data sources to assess access, and most commonly used these measures to assess adequacy of access. Data from this survey provide a basis for understanding how close states are to complying with the new federal regulation's access monitoring requirements.