OHCA conducting provider survey and town hall meetings on managed Medicaid

Posted on: 3/26/21

The Oklahoma Health Care Authority has placed a survey on its website that seeks input from providers and other stakeholders concerning the planned shift to SoonerSelect (managed Medicaid). 

Additionally, beginning this week, the agency is holding town hall meetings throughout the state. The first was held in Woodward today and two more have been announced for Duncan on April 1 and Poteau on April 7. Registration is required in advance. Our coalition, Health Care Holdup, is working to publish letters to the editor and op-eds to coincide with these meetings.

Additionally, we encourage you to notify your hospital community that lives and works in and around the locations where these meetings will be happening in the coming weeks and urge them to attend and ask questions. The OHCA says the intended purpose is to answer questions from health care providers and other stakeholders, so below are some broad questions that could be posed. 

• What do you consider to be an acceptable administrative rate for managed care? 
• How does the OHCA’s current administrative rate for Medicaid compare to the rate the four chosen insurance companies will be allowed to charge under the proposed plan?
• The Health Care Authority’s own actuarial advisor has said that to achieve cost savings under the managed care plan, Oklahoma would need to reduce services to Medicaid patients by up to 40%. How do you think patients will react when the insurance companies tell them they cannot receive a necessary procedure or service?
• Where is the demonstrable evidence that MCOs do in fact provide budget stability and improve health outcomes, as claimed by the proponents of this plan?
• The last time the state tried this, providers across the health care spectrum were unable to keep treating Medicaid patients under the new allowed service rate schedules. The result was particularly evident in rural Oklahoma, because patients had to travel further – often much further – to receive services. What specific safeguards have been implemented to prevent this from happening again? 
• What effort has been undertaken to simply incentivize the use of preventive care within the current system?
• What will happen if legislators decide not to fund the SoonerSelect proposal? 

Please don’t hesitate to ask questions specific to your communities. Asking pointed but sincere questions during these meetings will increase public scrutiny of SoonerSelect and could very well generate favorable media coverage. Your presence and participation during these meetings could be a powerful tool in defeating SoonerSelect. (Scott Tohlen)