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Medicaid Managed Care Ombudsman Bill to be Taken Up

AUGUSTA, Maine_ Legislative leaders have allowed a bill into next month's session that would re-establish the Medicaid managed care ombudsman that had been operating until the state Department of Health and Human Services failed to renew the contract to provide the service.
"We urgently need to clarify the Medicaid managed care ombudsman services section of our law, " says Representative Karen Vachon, Republican from Scarborough. "In June of this year DHHS abruptly, and without explanation, eliminated their longstanding contract to provide these services."

Vachon says the program is funded with a federal grant and that failure to have such an ombudsman service is in violation of law.  She says as a licensed insurance agent she knows the service needed.

Journalist Mal Leary spearheads Maine Public's news coverage of politics and government and is based at the State House.