Ohio Medicaid Risk Tool Targets Placement Prevention

Some children need help before they enter out-of-home placement. This can include child welfare placement, residential substance treatment, or longer hospital stays. These moves can change a child’s life in major ways. They can also account for a large share of pediatric Medicaid spending.

A team in Ohio tried to spot risk earlier. The work focused on about 27,000 Medicaid-enrolled children living in two Ohio counties from 2022 to 2024. The goal was simple: find children who might need prevention support before a crisis pushes them into a more disruptive setting.

The team built a three-level risk tool. It used Medicaid claims, child welfare records, neighborhood social risk factors, and health risk answers reported by patients. The work was part of Ohio’s Integrated Care for Kids Model. It brought together government and academic partners.

Linking the data was not easy. Agencies had to work through legal, political, security, and administrative steps. The team also learned that data can change later, so the time window used for review matters. Strong partner relationships helped. Even when data-use agreements took time, those ties created lasting value.

A data-based risk tool could cut costs, save time, and reduce repeated work. It may also help teams find families who would benefit from support. The main lesson is that sharing data across systems is hard, but the payoff can be worth the effort.