State balks at Medicaid billing costs
Healthcare Auditing Weekly, February 13, 2007
A $50-million computer system initially created to update Maine's Medicaid billing program is providing more hassles than solutions, according to state officials, healthcare providers, and an outside audit.
The Portland Press Herald reports that work on the computer system upgrade began in 2005. Now, two years later, the state has spent millions more than intended and the system has yet to work properly.
The paper claims the upgrade has failed for several reasons, not just one: State oversight was spotty, the company that created the system was inexperienced, and the state did not thoroughly train healthcare providers on how to file claims with the new system.
HHS Commissioner Brenda Harvey is talking with several vendors about turning over billing to one of them, instead of continuing to do it within her own agency.
"It's a shocking abuse of state resources," State Rep. Abigail Holman, R-Fayette, told the Press-Herald. "It's been a total waste of effort. Tens of millions of dollars spent, and they're abandoning the whole thing."
Click here to read the full news story.
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