The Dual Enrolled as a Disadvantaged Population: Developing Culturally Informed Interventions for Tennessee Medicare/Medicaid Women

Abstract

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have begun a major national initiative to reduce disparities in health care for the underserved through their contracts with state quality improvement organizations (QIOs). This initiative has translated into state-level projects that are, in many cases, investigating these populations to determine how best to address their health care deficiencies and improve the quality of their care. Tennessee's campaign, coordinated by the Center for Healthcare Quality (CHQ), the state's QIO, focused on the use of formative research to gain insights into diversity among the underserved in different settings across the state. Results aided the design of a series of site-appropriate interventions aimed at improving the utilization of mammography screening among Tennessee's Dual Enrolled: Medicare beneficiaries who are also enrolled in Medicare.