Population Health Management

Population health management activity is shifting toward Medicaid-driven risk management: 10 states joined a federal behavioral health Medicaid program while health systems such as Hackensack Meridian are mobilizing outreach to 500,000 patients at risk of losing Medicaid coverage, underscoring immediate churn, access, and uncompensated-care exposure for VBC organizations. At the same time, evidence of weak post-ED behavioral health follow-up and new work on AI-enabled Medicaid care management point to a core operational gap for ACOs and Medicaid managed care plans: identifying high-risk members early, closing primary care/behavioral health loops, and proving equity-sensitive ROI in care management interventions (10 states join federal behavioral health Medicaid program; Offline reinforcement learning for care management).