Women's Health Program Savings and Performance Report Released

By Erika Ramirez

The Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) released its Women’s Health Programs Savings and Performance Report on May 1. This report is legislatively mandated by Rider 97 in the 2018-19 General Appropriations Act.

The 2019 report fulfills all the reporting requirements for Healthy Texas Women (HTW) and the Family Planning Program (FPP). It includes enrollment levels, savings and expenditures, outreach activities, LARC utilization, and service utilization. It also shows us the total number of providers, total number of women served, and the number of women served by each provider.

A few items to highlight in this year’s report include:

• Only providers that actively billed HTW in FY 2018 are included. A total of 3,085 providers billed through HTW and 2,161 are primary providers, while the rest are ancillary.

• The data in this year’s report includes pharmacy benefits in service utilization and Medicaid savings for HTW.

• HTW served 172,023 women in FY 2018, compared to the 122,406 served in FY 2017.

- A 30 percent increase in clients served between FY 2017 to FY 2018.

• FPP served 106,224 clients in FY 2018, compared to the 96,984 served in FY 2017.

- A 10 percent increase in clients served from FY 2017 to FY 2018.

An important note to remember is last year’s report excluded the total number of unduplicated patients served detailed by provider. This year’s report does include that information in approximately 350 pages worth of appendices.

While we cannot compare the number of women served in FY 2018 to numbers from previous versions of the program (those prior to FY 2016) due to methodology changes, we are pleased to see an increase in the number of women served in both programs.

The Healthy Texas Women and Family Planning Programs connect Texas women with much needed services and are vital pieces of the state’s healthcare safety net. We hope these positive trends continue.