Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Senators Object To Halt In Medicaid Program That Provided Mental Health Care Options
Politico Pro: Lawmakers Press CMS To Reopen Shuttered Mental Health Experiment
Months after Congress unanimously voted to extend a three-year-old mental health payment experiment, the Obama administration shuttered it. Several key senators are now fighting to get it back. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) last year pushed through Congress a three-year extension of the Medicaid Emergency Psychiatric Services Demonstration after the program — created under the Affordable Care Act — ran out of money. Under the demonstration, the 11 participating states and the District of Columbia used Medicaid funds to pay for inpatient emergency psychiatric care in private hospitals with more than 16 beds. Current law restricts these hospitals from billing Medicaid under a decades-old restriction detested by the mental health care community, known as the “IMD exclusion.” (Ehley, 11/2)
AL.com: State Auditor Jim Zeigler Asks Panel To Delay $8.3 Million Medicaid Contract
State Auditor Jim Zeigler has asked the Legislature's contract review committee to delay renewal of an Alabama Medicaid Agency contract with a firm to help Medicaid transition to managed care. Under the contract renewal, Medicaid would pay Navigant Consulting Inc., of Chicago $8.3 million through November 2017. The company will provide "technical assistance and resource support" to help implement a plan to treat Medicaid patients through regional care organizations, RCOs. ... Zeigler cited some of the uncertainty involved in the transition to RCOs. (Cason, 11/2)
Georgia Health News: Behavioral Health Chief Picked To Run Georgia’s Medicaid Agency
Frank Berry, head of the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, will replace Clyde Reese as commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Health. Gov. Nathan Deal, who made the Berry announcement Wednesday, also nominated Judy Fitzgerald, DBHDD’s current chief of staff, as its new commissioner. Pending approval by the board, Fitzgerald will take over the role Dec. 1. The appointments followed the departure of Reese to become a judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals. (Miller, 11/2)
