{"id":368470,"date":"2025-12-25T00:36:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T00:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368470\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T00:36:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T00:36:14","slug":"idaho-supreme-court-dismisses-lawsuit-over-medicaid-mental-health-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368470\/","title":{"rendered":"Idaho Supreme Court dismisses lawsuit over Medicaid mental health contract"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun<\/a>) \u2014 The Idaho Supreme Court has dismissed a lawsuit from a bidder for an Idaho Medicaid contract to run mental health services.<\/p>\n

The Dec. 18 decision upheld a lower state court\u2019s decision to dismiss the lawsuit<\/a> by Beacon, resolving a years-long legal dispute over a managed care contract that is likely Idaho state government\u2019s largest contract<\/a>, valued at $1.2 billion over four years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before Idaho awarded the company Magellan the contract<\/a> to run Medicaid mental health services in 2023, Beacon initially had the highest score for its bid \u2014 but the state disqualified the company due to past work that officials said was related to the contract.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Later in 2023, two separate Idaho district court judges dismissed lawsuits by Beacon and Optum, another bidding company that didn\u2019t win the contract. The judges agreed<\/a> that they lacked jurisdiction to review the state\u2019s contract award decision, citing limits on judicial review in the State Procurement Act, Idaho\u2019s government contracting law, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Optum\u2019s lawsuit was dismissed<\/a> in the Idaho Supreme Court in 2024. Last week, the Idaho Supreme Court ruled on Beacon\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 We hold the State Procurement Act does not violate the Idaho Constitution\u2019s separation of power\u2019s doctrine,\u201d the Supreme Court ruled on Dec. 18.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beacon\u2019s national affiliate, Carelon Behavioral Health, could not be immediately reached for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a statement Monday, Idaho Attorney General Ra\u00fal Labrador said the state Supreme Court \u201creinforced the authority of the Idaho Legislature to define when district courts may review agency actions of the executive branch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs my office argued and the Court concluded, such authority is vested in the legislative branch by the Idaho Constitution,\u201d Labrador said. \u201cIf Carelon had prevailed, losing bidders in government contracts could drag the state into court over every major contract and ask judges to second-guess agency decisions and invalidate billion-dollar agreements that Idahoans depend on for health care, roads, and critical services.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Idaho faces a projected budget shortfall, the contractor Magellan has cut critical mental health services<\/a>. The contract to run Idaho Medicaid mental health services is called the Idaho Behavioral Health Plan. <\/p>\n

\t \t \t \t=htmlentities(get_the_title())?>%0D%0A%0D%0A=get_permalink()?>%0D%0A%0D%0A=htmlentities(‘For more stories like this one, be sure to visit https:\/\/www.eastidahonews.com\/ for all of the latest news, community events and more.’)?>&subject=Check%20out%20this%20story%20from%20EastIdahoNews” class=”fa-stack jDialog”> \t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) \u2014 The Idaho Supreme Court has dismissed a lawsuit from a bidder for an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":{"0":"post-368470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}