Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on the Department of Health and Human Services

The HHS Oversight Committee met November 8 to get updates from the Department of Health and Human Services on a number of issues important to people with disabilities in NC. A great deal of the time was spent on efforts to meet the budget requirements imposed by the legislature this summer. Secretary Cansler reported the current shortfall for Medicaid is $139 million. As he has said before, Cansler indicated that the only way to fill that gap without additional money is to cut provider rates by 18% for the last three or four months of the fiscal year or to eliminate all Medicaid optional services (except pharmacy) during the same time period. No cuts to services could be implemented immediately because such changes require approval of federal authorities. Perhaps the brightest spot in the session was that Chairman Nelson Dollar indicated the legislature found both of those possibilities untenable and would find a way to avoid them. No word on where the money would come from. DHHS’s responses to questions posed by committee members is available at the committee website here.
Dr. Beth Melcher gave the Department’s update on the implementation of the 1915 b/c Medicaid waiver. She indicated the process is moving forward, with the identification of the entities that will eventually become the Managed Care Organizations running the waiver programs completed in October. Eleven such organizations have been identified. Those organizations will either subsume or partner with other LMEs to provide services statewide.