Access to medicaid providers: availability of mental health services for children and adolescents in child welfare in Louisiana. Issue 2 (14th March 2020) - Scheeringa, Michael S.
ABSTRACT: The purpose of the study was to determine the level of access that youths in child welfare have to mental health providers in a single state. Mystery shoppers called every provider publicly advertised in Medicaid managed care organization networks. Results showed that 25.4% of the advertised network was able to schedule a new appointment for a child in Department of Children and Family Services guardianship. There were 9.7 accessible providers of any discipline (MD, PhD, or licensed masters-level clinician) per 10, 000 Medicaid-enrolled youths in the population. The level of access to MDs was 4.1 times lower than the nationally recommended level.