January 1, 2019, the Health Care Authority (HCA) will expand integrated managed care (IMC) to five additional regions. We recommend hospitals and providers review this information to ensure contractual relationships with the relevant Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) are in place prior to implementation. A HCA map and table shows the service areas, timelines, and MCOs for each region.
The new regions are Greater Columbia, King, North Sound, Pierce, and Spokane. Two regions, Southwest and North Central, previously integrated behavioral and physical health but are adding Klickitat and Okanagan Counties, respectively. Three remaining regions, Thurston-Mason, Great Rivers, and Salish are scheduled to convert to IMC as of January 2020.
Under IMC, managed care organizations (MCOs) are responsible for provision and payment for all mental health and substance abuse disorder treatment, in addition to physical health services. The MCOs for each region were selected by HCA through a Request for Proposal process. (Andrew Busz, andrewb@wsha.org).
