Louisiana audit finds pregnant patients struggle to get care | Health care/Hospitals

A state audit states that pregnant medical patients in Louisiana often struggle to access pre -birth and postpartum care because nearest doctors not who accept government -fired health insurance, providers’ lists are often incorrect, and many are inaccurate.

Report, Louisiana’s legislative auditor issued on MondayReviewed the efforts of the Department of Health Department to improve maternity health – an area where Louisiana has long been among the worst places in the nation.

Despite the increasing attention and financing, the share of pregnant women in the state who did not care for the pre -birth of the first quarter increased from 22.5 % in 2018 to 26 % in 2023.

Medicated patients were most affected, three out of four with timely care. The majority of new children in Louisiana, 63.5 %, are produced by Medicide in insured women.

To spend without consequences

The audit revealed that the Louisiana Department of Health has spent about $ 400 million on maternity health reforms, which spent from February 20 to March 2024 through a managed care privileged payment program, but some steps were lacking copies or measurements.

“There is a lot of money being kept on it, but many measurements or new things are not being created,” said Chris Maggie, manager of data at the auditor’s office.

In examples presented in the report:

• 8 12.8 million were paid to assess the measures related to breastfeeding policies and the state’s breastfeeding measures, though all 16 co -hospitals had already had such policies and 15 of the 16 were already part of the move.
• 4 4.26 million was paid to submit a pre -prepared risk tool and to submit a risky device used by the Women’s Hospital in Baton Rouge.
• Under the LDH Medicide Program, the Million was paid 13 million for these measures that were already financed, including reducing C -section rates, though the LDH has paid an additional .11 15.1 million to organized care organizations for the same purpose.

“In essence, the LDH paid the same improvement twice,” the audit said.

However, some internal programs showed improvement compared to some external financing programs. The audit highlighted the Luziana Perenestal Quality Mutual Cooperation and Safe Births, which contains the results of the measurement of statistical programs, which has improved maternity health.

Patients suffer

According to a complaint, if 21 weeks pregnant, a woman in Louisiana cannot be cared for because according to a complaint, her rural areas did not have medical lyrics.

Another pregnant resident lost several pre -birth appointments as the transport provided by Medicide never lifted it. Within 30 weeks, his doctor threatened that he would stop watching her because of memories visits.

One of the most amazing results of the audit was that 37.5 % of Louisiana’s parishs had no practice of Ob-Gyns serving medical patients. In areas of the list, one in five had not seen medical patients in the last six months. Complaints from auditors reviewing patients suggest that transportation is a major problem.

Maggie said, “There is a bigger contact than the provider network.

The audit has revealed that organized care organizations, who are mostly responsible for maintaining medical entries, do not maintain the correct lists of providers, which they should do “is one of the most basic things”. The audience confirmed that the list is wrong by checking itself.

“If we can do this, they should be able to do this with their internal data,” said Maggie.

LDH disagrees with audit

Maggie said the increase in payment rates can eliminate the provider’s shortage, and analysis of complaints and improving the monitoring of MCOs can help more medical patients connect with maintenance.

In response to the audit, the LDH agreed with all the recommendations of the legislative auditor. State health officials acknowledged problems in providing network accuracy and access to care, and efforts like 2024 steps to clear MCO providers. The department also acknowledged the need for better services of case management and transport, and called for a commitment to improve maternity health results.

A The public letter of FebruaryLouisiana Surgeon General, Dr. Ralph Ibrahim, identified maternity and child deaths as a priority for the health department.

However, a spokesman said that the personnel would not be able to answer questions about their efforts to improve access and keep MCOs accountable.

‘A long -term game’

The report states that the establishment of remote maintenance in the countryside, increasing the number of nurse midwives and making it easy for them, can provide better services by starting pre -birth care and increasing home tour. While LDH has two home services, they only serve 6 % of births.

Pre -birth care allows for diabetes or hypertension diagnosis, which can make pregnancy more dangerous to children and mothers, and it should be monitored, Dr. Rabaka G, who is an OBGN and founder of nesting health, who provides basic care to patients at home. He said that a provider could examine mental health problems or medicines during pregnancy.

But only a handful of appointments need to be in the doctor’s office setting, GG said, who monitored LDH from 2016 to 2020. Many patients can be seen home or practically.

The nest is launching in Arizona and plans to include pre -birth appointments in the state, but it has also been challenged to contribute to health plans to do so in Louisiana.

One of the major problems is that pregnancy is often considered separate from the overall health of women, GI said. But to support a healthy pregnancy, care needs to be started before and after and after birth. He said that many women begin to care for pre -birth, do not get postpartum care and lack regular care between pregnancy.

“Pregnancy is a test of tension on women’s health, and we are failing to test this stress,” said G.

Lack of care causes poor health consequences to determine the mother and children, which affects their entire life.

“It is important to do whatever you can to strengthen these networks, because it’s really a long -term game,” said Maggie.