Charlene Robinson waits for her appointment at the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas clinic in Coffeyville. To help alleviate patient confusion regarding their healthcare providers through the new KanCare program, CHC/SEK clinics have posted banners to inform patients that they may receive their healthcare services through CHC/SEK. by KHI News Service

While acknowledging “bumps in the road,” state officials for several weeks have been saying that the launch of KanCare, the state’s new Medicaid program, has been going better than they expected.

But people who work at some of the clinics that specialize in treating poor and uninsured Kansans describe it differently. They say the transition, now entering its third month, has been an ordeal for them and that some of the problems are compromising patient care.

“I went through the tornado in Joplin (in May 2011) and survived,” said Lori Lowrey, chief revenue officer for the Community Health Clinic of Southeast Kansas. “I would equate the anxiety of KanCare with the anxiety I felt following that event. It’s just been an inferno everyday. When you walk through the door, you’re greeted by staff frustrated at every level...nurses, administrators, patients and then trying to communicate with the (KanCare companies) and their contractors, it’s just very taxing. I just don't feel like it’s been accurately portrayed by the people at the state level or the MCOS (managed care companies). It’s been a road full of potholes. It’s not been a few bumps.”

The clinic here serves about 29,000 people a year at its eight sites scattered across the corner of Kansas that generally ranks as the state’s poorest and least healthy. That makes is a key medical provider, particularly when it comes to primary care for the poor. About 35 percent of its patients are on Medicaid, according to clinic officials.

State and KanCare company officials acknowledge there have been problems at the safety net clinics and more so at some of the 16 that are designated as Federally Qualified Health Centers, which includes the Community Health Clinic of Southeast Kansas. The FQHCs together have more than 20 satellite clinics scattered across the state and collectively serve many thousands of the state’s poorer families.

A special meeting that included clinic directors, state officials and KanCare contractors was held privately two weeks ago in Topeka to discuss the situation.

Issues identified

An “issues log” of 86 problems submitted by the clinics to the Kansas Association for the Medically Underserved (KAMU), a group that represents the safety net clinics, was presented at the meeting.

Among the problems cited:

• Delayed or stalled payments from the KanCare companies,

• Poor communication and misinformation

• Troubles getting clinic doctors and other providers included in the KanCare provider networks and patients properly assigned.

• Difficulty getting treatments or medications approved for patients.

The list was similar to but longer than the problem tally submitted to state officials a week earlier by the Kansas Medical Society and the Kansas Medical Group Management Association along with a letter asking the state to extend the KanCare transition period to allow more time for smoothing things out.

Kari Bruffett, the director of the Division of Health Care Finance at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, has been the point person for the administration of Gov. Sam Brownback on much of the KanCare implementation.

Bruffett said state officials determined from the meeting with clinic officials “that while there were some crosscutting issues, there were a lot of issues specific to the individual (clinics), so what we asked the managed care organizations to do with those (clinics) was to work with them individually and basically keep us posted.”

She said she had been assured that many of the problems raised at the meeting were being dealt with and that the chief executives of the KanCare companies have been responsive whenever concerns were brought to their attention.

One result of the meeting, according to some who attended, was an agreement by at least two of the KanCare companies to make “advance payments” to clinics that asked for them to help deal with their cash-flow problems.

“I know of at least one (KanCare MCO) that is in the process of sending out advance payments,” said Cathy Harding, executive director of KAMU, “and another said they would do the same thing.”

She said she expected the third company also would agree to advance or expedited payments.

But in a series of interviews late last week with the KHI News Service, clinic directors from across the state give KanCare what could at best be described as mixed reviews. And those unhappy with the way KanCare is rolling out said they had seen little or no improvement as a result of the meeting.

“In our opinion, it’s kind of going from bad to worse,” said Krista Postai, executive director of the Community Health Clinic of Southeast Kansas. “I have nurses now spending all day on the phone trying to get pre-approvals (for patient medications from the KanCare insurance companies or their subcontractors) and not getting them. A lot of my providers have been doing this for years and they never had anything this absurd on pre-authorizations. I understand that is meant to control costs…but this is costing us a fortune.”

→ Continue reading about problems reported from clinics in Wichita, Johnson County and others around the state.