Medicaid and department of corrections continuity of care study

Publication Date: 4/30/2004

Description:

This report describes the results of a study in which a cohort of persons who were released from Florida Department of Corrections prisons during fiscal year 1999-2000 were followed up to determine what public sector mental health and substance abuse services they received in the community following their release. The focus of this study is on public sector mental health and substance abuse services because we anticipate that a large majority of persons released from prison who receive such services obtain their services from public sector providers and because our focus for this study is on Medicaid. Probabilistic case matching techniques were used to determine which persons from the cohort appeared in several administrative data sets pertaining to public sector mental health and substance abuse services in Florida. Then, these data sets were analyzed to determine the timing and nature of the mental health and substance abuse services that were received following release.