its Medicaid contract with United Healthcare<\/a> after Attorney General Liz Murrill clashed with the insurer over its pharmacy benefit manager, OptumRx.<\/p>\nNow, starting in January, four insurers are on track to offer Medicaid plans in Louisiana, down from six last year.<\/p>\n
As of August, 1.2 million people are enrolled in Healthy Louisiana, the state\u2019s Medicaid program, which provides health insurance to poor and disabled people. Of those, roughly 357,000 are insured through Louisiana Healthcare Connections.<\/p>\n
What we know about the contract dispute<\/p>\n
It is unclear why Louisiana Healthcare Connections, owned by parent company Centene, and Ochsner have not reached an agreement.<\/p>\n
Louisiana Healthcare Connections did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Ochsner provided a statement but did not answer questions about what is causing the disagreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the largest provider of Medicaid services across the state of Louisiana, our focus is always on supporting the health and well-being of the people and communities we serve,\u201d Ochsner\u2019s statement said. \u201cWe work closely with state leaders toward that shared goal. As part of that ongoing collaboration, we recently provided LDH with an update on our provider network agreement with Louisiana Healthcare Connections. By being proactive and forthcoming about the status of those discussions, our goal is to help ensure Medicaid beneficiaries have clear information and can continue receiving the care they need without disruption.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a letter dated Oct. 9 to the Health Department, Ochsner said that since June it has \u201ccontinued good-faith negotiations to reach an agreement and avoid disrupting care for LHCC members.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe potential impact on patients is significant. Ochsner serves more than 70,000 LHCC patients each year,\u201d the letter says.<\/p>\n
In a Sept. 22 news release, Louisiana Healthcare Connections said contract negotiations were ongoing at that time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe current agreements are approximately 15 years old,\u201d the news release said. \u201cIn the years since they were established, health care delivery, technology and expectations for collaboration between health plans and providers have evolved considerably. Louisiana Healthcare Connections believes its partnership with Ochsner should evolve as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
State Sen. Patrick McMath, R-Covington, mentioned the impasse during a Senate health committee meeting on Monday, calling the stalled agreement \u201cvery concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an interview, McMath said he wants to be sure Medicaid beneficiaries across the state have coverage, especially as Louisiana is on track to drop to four Medicaid plans. He said he\u2019s hopeful the companies will resolve their differences.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen there\u2019s a disagreement with the largest health system in the state, Ochsner, that has 70,000 Louisiana Healthcare Connections patients, we\u2019re gonna be paying to how those negotiations are going,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gold, the Medicaid director, noted that \u201cfailure to reach an agreement would lead to Ochsner no longer being in network for LHCC starting December 1.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the Health Department will ensure LHCC meets the state\u2019s standards for patients\u2019 access to care.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re continuing to run the network adequacy reviews to make sure that they can meet that with or without Ochsner,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Healthcare coverage by one of the state\u2019s four remaining Medicaid insurers is in question due to a contract…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":881231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[8803,97,252,253],"class_list":["post-881230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-hardwall","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881230","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=881230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/881231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}