Case Study: Salt Lake County cuts hospitalizations and lowers costs with Optum360

Salt Lake County - Customer Case Study

Salt Lake County contracted Optum360 (operating locally as Optum SLCo) to manage Medicaid and state-funded mental health and substance abuse services for roughly 100,000 recipients. The county’s challenge was to improve coordination of care and recovery-oriented services while reducing unnecessary inpatient and ER admissions, shortening lengths of stay, lowering jail recidivism, and cutting system costs.

Optum360 led a system-wide redesign and launched community-based initiatives including a Mobile Crisis Outreach Team (MCOT), crisis and peer warm lines, a Receiving Center and Wellness Recovery Center, school-based early intervention, and alternatives-to-incarceration programs. The results included a 24% decrease in inpatient census, MCOT outreaches rising from 287 to 453 per quarter with community retention up to 76% and hospitalizations down to 11%, estimated quarterly diversion savings growing to $1.25M (Jan–Mar 2013), a crisis line handling >3,000 calls/month, the Receiving Center averaging 87 visits/month with only 7% progressing to inpatient care, and jail program impacts (JDOT/CORE) showing 17–44% fewer bookings and up to 84% reductions in overall jail length of stay.

Salt Lake County