As Medicaid agencies transition beneficiaries with complex behavioral and physical health conditions from fee-for-service to managed care, it is imperative that these plans have the ability to assess patients' health accurately to better manage care for those with the greatest needs. As Drozda and colleagues point out in this journal's August 2008 issue, 2 options for health assessment include a patient-reported health risk assessment (HRA) and a medical claims-based predictive risk report (PRR). Although we agree that HRAs can be difficult to obtain and that PRRs offer an opportunity to identify those patients who might benefit from case management more efficiently, the aforementioned study included limitations that warrant consideration and question whether one approach to health assessment can be deemed more effective than another.
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