รายละเอียดกระทู้

Hensley declares audit political retribution by Brownback allies By Tim Carpenter timothy.carpenter@cjonline.com http://cjonline.com/news/2013-07-23/kansas-audit-potential-conflict-among-disability-service-providers The auditing committee of the Kansas Legislative voted Tuesday to authorize a study to determine whether conflicts of interest exist among more than two dozen organizations serving people with developmental disabilities. The six-month analysis by the Legislative Division of Post Audit took on political ramifications when Republicans denounced a complaint by Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, the audit was retribution for lobbying by disability activists to leave long-term support services for Kansans with intellectual disabilities out of the Medicaid reform program KanCare developed by Gov. Sam Brownback. The Republican-led 2013 Legislature and Brownback decided to fold this last category of programs into KanCare in January. "This audit is the Brownback administration's political payback for community opposition to the KanCare carve-in of developmental disability services," Hensley said. Sen. Jeff Longbine, the Emporia Republican chairman of the House-Senate auditing committee, cast the tie-breaking vote to approve the conflict-of-interest study. He said the state had a duty to plow ground broken with state audits in 1999 and 2003 that identified problems related to client referrals, contract terms, funding distributions and quality reviews. Longbine said legislators had raised new questions about operational integrity of two dozen Community Developmental Disability Organizations, or CDDOs, and 200 providers delivering services to people with disabilities. The audit will examine whether "substantial conflicts of interest remain" and what reform might improve services to individuals with disabilities. The audit was sought by Senate Majority Leader Terry Bruce, a Hutchinson Republican who thought a fresh assessment would be prudent prior to the Legislature stepping in to overhaul CDDOs. "To say the proposed audit was politically motivated is simply not true," Bruce said. "The goal of the audit is to explore a potentially serious problem and insure the most vulnerable Kansans are receiving the best possible care." For two years, the Interhab organization led by Tom Laing lobbied to keep long-term support services for developmentally disabled Kansans out of Brownback's managed care portfolio of Medicaid clients in Kansas. Interhab, headquartered in Topeka, represents most of the state's CDDOs. Laing said he didn't object to the audit, but he didn't believe there was credible evidence of conflict of interest to warrant a review. He has advocated for strict monitoring of the three contractors administering KanCare to guarantee these organizations didn't diminish quality of care in the quest for profit. "If it's a big deal, why aren't you looking at it in every other area?" Laing said. Most of Kansas' 370,000 recipients of Medicaid — a state-federal partnership — were placed in KanCare in January under contracts with Amerigroup, UnitedHealthcare and Sunflower State Health Plan. Advocates for Kansans with developmental disabilities successfully lobbied for the one-year delay in inclusion of that population's long-term support services.