Evaluation Mathematica is evaluating Cash and Counseling, a three-state demonstration in which frail elderly and disabled Medicaid enrollees receive a monthly cash allowance to purchase personal assistance services and related goods.
Participants also receive counseling to help plan their purchases.
The primary goal is to expand consumers control over their personal care, thereby increasing their satisfaction and meeting their needs for care without increasing public costs. The evaluation will describe program implementation and estimate the intervention's impacts on consumers, their caregivers, and public costs in each state, based on a random assignment design. Cash and Counseling is being tested in Arkansas, Florida, and New Jersey. Full report on consumers' early experiences in Arkansas Issue brief on consumers' early experiences in Arkansas Similar interim results for Florida and New Jersey also will be prepared. Final reports will be available beginning in 2003.