Lawmakers cover Medicaid shortfall

Friday, June 4, 2004 | 10:34 a.m.

The state-run Medicaid program to provide the poor with health care received a $61.5 million shot in the arm Thursday from the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee.

But lawmakers were not happy about having to cover the end-of-fiscal-year shortfall that was reported to them so late, forcing them to allocate $20 million in state funds, $37.8 million in matching federal monies and $3.7 million in local funds from inter-governmental transfers.

"They came to us in April with this," Sen. Barbara Cegavske, R-Las Vegas, a member of the committee, said today. "They had no idea until then they would be $20 million short? I find that hard to believe.

"We absolutely had no choice but to approve this because the doctors and hospitals were not being reimbursed" in a timely manner for Medicaid patients.

The committee's action Thursday at its first-ever teleconference from Carson City to Las Vegas took $20 million in state general fund money from the 2005 fiscal budget and put it into fiscal 2004, which ends June 30.

That almost made 2004 the state's first $1 billion Medicaid budget, bringing it to $992.6 million. Instead, that honor still will go to next year's budget, which, after the transfer, stands at $1.034 billion.

Cegavske said doctors have told her they are reluctant to take on Medicaid patients because the state is too slow in reimbursing them.

"One eye doctor told me since January he is owed $100,000," she said. "Some hospitals probably can get around waiting several months for reimbursements, but not the individual doctors in their practices.

"Between now and the next session we will really be taking a look at what they (Medicaid officials) are doing. There has to be accountability and options."