MEDICAID: Providers all placed in peril

I appreciate The Press’s coverage of the Medicaid payment mess we are currently dealing with.  I wanted to rebut some of the comments by Emily Sinmitt. It seems the Department of Health and Welfare is trying to place the blame on the providers while not addressing the heart of the problem, which is that the majority of claims are not being paid on a timely basis.

I own three assisted living facilities for residents with a mental illness or developmental disability and currently have 100 percent Medicaid clients.  I signed up for the system before the deadline and submitted my claims to the system.

As it stands, the new system is putting most of the payments on a pending status. I hope to receive a check for 25 percent of the money that I am owed for the June holdback. As you pointed out this is putting many providers in serious financial straits.

Additionally, I have become proficient with the system, but it does still take me 2 to 3 times as long to bill than it did with the old system.

I just hope the Department and Molina would own the problem and work with providers to find a quick solution.  In a discussion with one of the Molina employees today,  I was told they are understaffed, the training was inadequate, the software was poorly designed and inadequately tested, leading to the fiasco we are experiencing now.

GRAHAM CHRISTENSEN

Harmony House Assisted Living