Utilization of Medical and Dental Services for Children and Adults with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities

This presentation includes the results of a study completed in 2005 to understand the utilization and outcomes of health care for adults and children with intellectual and/or developmental disability (IDD). Through a joint project with the CDC, AUCD and four other states we are able to extend this study to include more recent data and compare it to our previous results.

The ability to monitor and understand the health care utilization of populations and subpopulations continues to improve as administrative data collection increases. In addition, measures based upon administrative data have been honed and perfected enhancing our ability to establish baseline measures and follow them over time. This presentation provides the protocols used to identify Medicaid members with IDD using a 5 year look back period and the results from applying HEDIS measures to understand health care utilization in this population. Data are presented from 2005 and 2013 allowing us to evaluate whether and how measures work over time while assessing access and outcomes to care for this group.

We utilize data from the Iowa Medicaid program for the years 2000-2013 for adults and children. Over 18,000 adults and children were included in the 2005 study. We anticipate adding another 20,000 Medicaid members for the more recent measures. Previous findings indicated that though adults with IDD had similar utilization patterns for well-care as adults without IDD, children with IDD were less likely to receive well-care than children without IDD.