Sec. 32.071. RECIPIENT AND PROVIDER EDUCATION

(a) The department shall develop and implement a comprehensive medical assistance education campaign for recipients and providers to ensure that care is provided in such a way as to improve patient outcomes and maximize cost-effectiveness. The department shall ensure that educational information developed under this section is demographically relevant and appropriate for each recipient or provider to whom the information is provided.

(b) The comprehensive medical assistance education campaign must include elements designed to encourage recipients to obtain, maintain, and use a medical home and to reduce their use of high-cost emergency department services for conditions that can be treated through primary care or nonemergency physicians or other providers. The campaign must include the dissemination of educational information through newsletters and emergency department staff members and at local health fairs, unless the department determines that these methods of dissemination are not effective in increasing recipients' appropriate use of the health care system.

(c) The department shall evaluate whether certain risk groups may disproportionately increase their appropriate use of the health care system as a result of targeted elements of an education campaign. If the department determines that certain risk groups will respond with more appropriate use of the system, the department shall develop and implement the appropriate targeted educational elements.

(d) The department shall develop a system for reviewing recipient prescription drug use and educating providers with respect to that drug use in a manner that emphasizes reducing inappropriate prescription drug use and the possibility of adverse drug interactions.

(e) The department shall coordinate the medical assistance education campaign with area health education centers, federally qualified health centers, as defined by 42 U.S.C. Section 1396d(l)(2)(B), and other stakeholders who use public funds to educate recipients and providers about the health care system in this state. The department shall make every effort to maximize state funds by working through these partners to maximize receipt of additional federal funding for administrative and other costs.

(f) The department shall coordinate with other state and local agencies to ensure that community-based health workers, health educators, state eligibility determination employees who work in hospitals and other provider locations, and promoters are used in the medical assistance education campaign, as appropriate.

(g) The department shall ensure that all state agencies that work with recipients, all administrative persons who provide eligibility determination and enrollment services, and all service providers use the same curriculum for recipient and provider education, as appropriate.

Added by Acts 2005, 79th Leg., Ch. 349 , Sec. 9(a), eff. September 1, 2005.