MEDICAID: There is a major problem

I want to thank the Coeur d’Alene Press and Maureen Dolan for making public the battle that many Medicaid providers have been facing for the past several weeks.

I was dumbfounded by the perspective that Emily Sinmitt of Idaho Department of Health & Welfare presented. Earlier in the article various Medicaid providers described the financial difficulties they have been put into by the new billing system. Most providers have only received a fraction of what they are due, some are talking about closing their doors, and the new billing vendor, Molina, has made very little progress in rectifying the problems, even after being active for over a month.              Nevertheless, Ms. Sinmitt states, “We haven’t seen any major problems with the new system.”  My question to Ms. Sinmitt would be what would constitute a major problem?

Contemplating shutting the doors of one’s business or only receiving 5 percent to 40 percent of what is legitimately due, would constitute major problems. My guess would be that if Ms. Sinmitt had not received her paycheck for a month, and she was told by her accounting department (after being on hold for 30-45 minutes) that they are “working on it,” and then be told that she had not completed her paperwork on time (even though she had), that would be a major problem in her eyes.

I was offended that rather than admitting that the system does not work, Ms. Sinmitt elected to blame the providers because they “did not complete their enrollment applications by the deadline.”

ROBERT WHEELER

Post Falls