Long-term recommendations from the State Auditor, and a “Modest Proposal” from me.
Two days ago, Adam Edelen, Kentucky’s new Auditor of Public Accounts, began his term in office with a bang by releasing the results of his initial investigation of the performance of Kentucky’s four Medicaid managed care vendors. There is obviously a practical limit to the amount of information that can be collected and analyzed in a short time, and the Auditor’s office appropriately acknowledged this. Nonetheless, the results were consistent with anecdotal reports and legislative hearings, and were correspondingly very discouraging. The State Auditor offered suggestions in hopes of improving future services.
In early February, Mr. Edelen asked the Commonwealth’s four Medicaid Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) to provide his office with information from the months of November and December of 2011. He asked for basic statistics such as: the number of members served, the number of claims filed and paid, the dollar value of those claims, and the number and value of rejected claims with the reasons for rejection. (Note that we are only talking about two months.)
In a press release of February 29, the Auditor noted that the managed care organizations had received $708 million while paying out only 420 million as of February 15. That is a float of $288 million! Although there was plenty of criticism of the MCOs, the Auditor also shared some of the blame on the Cabinet which was said to have failed to learn the lessons of the difficult transition to Passport 14 years ago and was ill-prepared to monitor and enforce its contracts with the new MCOs. Continue reading “Universal Medicaid Managed Care in Kentucky: Month Five.”