When Pennsylvania put its HealthChoices contracts up for bid, the sizeable market to be served – more than 2.5 million people – was expected to draw interest from major national managed care organizations that serve Medicaid patients.
It didn’t happen.
Instead, of the nine companies that submitted bids, only one came from a national company that did not already participate in HealthChoices: Centene, a St. Louis company that serves six million Medicaid patients in 21 states.
National Medicaid managed care organizations Anthem, Molina Healthcare, and WellCare did not bid.
Three much smaller organizations submitted bids to enter the Pennsylvania Medicaid market: Accendia, a subsidiary of Capital Blue Cross; Meridien Health Plan, a Detroit-based company serving 700,000 Medicaid recipients in six midwestern states; and Trusted Health Plan, a two-year-old plan currently serving Medicaid beneficiaries in Washington, D.C.
The state is expected to award contracts in its five HealthChoices zones in January.
Read more about the bidding for HealthChoices contracts in this Philadelphia Inquirer article.