Florida Task Force: Trouble With Medicaid Managed Care? Hit the Complaint Button
The Florida Joint Public Policy Task Force for the Aged and Disabled urges individuals, families and attorneys to bring emerging problems with Medicaid Managed Care in Florida to the attention of administrators at the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA). Only by staying on top of any problems can the new systems be evaluated and corrected.
In the Florida Bar News, the Task Force writes:
One issue the Task Force — a combined effort of the Academy of Florida Elder Law Attorneys and The Florida Bar’s Elder Law Section — is concerned about is that seniors on Medicaid may be signing forms allowing their Medicaid managed care plans (MCP) to take control over who receives information from the state, including notices for annual deadlines for ongoing eligibility, without understanding what they are signing. This led to an MCP missing the deadline for at least one client.
“A wife was understandably very upset when she found out her husband’s Medicaid had been cancelled,” says Emma Hemness, the president of the Academy of Florida Elder Law Attorneys, Task Force member and elder law attorney in Brandon. “The MCPs are supposed to make sure this doesn’t happen. The wife says she never received a notice and she doesn’t remember giving any authority to the MCP.
“She only found out about the cancellation from the facility,” Hemness said. “She then came to me to reapply and had to start from the beginning, adding unnecessary stress and expense for her.”…
This means clients and their attorneys must sometimes initiate complaints. This can be done by utilizing the complaint button on AHCA’s website, http://ahca.myflorida.com/Medicaid/statewide_mc/index.shtml.
The complaint button is recommended for any difficulties that clients may be experiencing with Florida’s Medicaid Managed Care. Clients must document their complaint or their lawyers can do little for them.
For more information, read Trouble With Medicaid Managed Care? Hit the “Complaint” Button, from the June 2015 Florida Bar News.