Does Arkansas' Cash and Counseling Affect Service Use and Public Costs?

The evaluation of the national Cash and Counseling Demonstration enables researchers to rigorously analyze costs under agency-directed and consumer-directed approaches. In this report, the authors use results from Arkansas' IndependentChoices, the first of three Cash and Counseling demonstration programs to be implemented, to explore the program's effect on Medicaid PCS costs and on Medicaid and Medicare costs and service use under consumer-directed and agency-directed programs for the one-year period after enrollment in the demonstration. To determine whether any treatment-control differences changed over time, they also examine effects over a two-year follow-up period for those individuals who enrolled during the first year of the demonstration. In addition, the authors present data on the costs of administering IndependentChoices. [58 PDF pages]