WellCare HMOs will stick with Medicaid pilot project

9/2/2008 © Florida Health News
The state Medicaid program won't have to shift into crisis mode, after all.  On Tuesday afternoon, the Agency for Health Care Administration said it received notification from HealthEase and Staywell -- subsidies of WellCare Health Plans Inc. -- that that they will continue to participate in the state's Medicaid pilot privatization program. 

AMERIGROUP Florida was first to notify AHCA of the change of heart on Friday. With the two WellCare plans, that means three of the four Medicaid HMOs that had notified AHCA they'd be pulling out of the five-county project on Dec. 1 have rescinded that decision. AMERIGROUP covers 14,000 Medicaid patients in the pilot project and WellCare's plans cover 83,000. Together, they account for more than 100,000 Medicaid patients, a majority of those enrolled.

UnitedHealthcare of Florida. which covers 26,000 in the pilot counties, has not notified AHCA that it has changed its mind about leaving, an AHCA spokesman said Wednesday morning. 

The plans' change of heart came after AHCA agreed that it would cut payments by an average of 3 percent on Sept. 1 instead of 5 percent, as previously announced. 

WellCare, based in Tampa, did not make a public statement and did not return phone calls and e-mails. On Friday, AMERIGROUP spokesman Kent Jenkins said, "We're very happy we're going to be able to continue serving our members in Broward County," said . "We understand that this is not an easy time for the state. We're glad they arrived at a solution."

The threatened pullout would have left AHCA in a crunch to find new plans for more than 100,000 Medicaid patients in Broward, Duval and three rural counties involved in the privatization project. The dilemma was outlined in Florida Health News on Thursday.