n Gaining approval to fill more than 50 vacancies.
n Responding by the end of March to outstanding letters from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services regarding significant program eligibility issues.
n Working to ensure that proper payments are made to providers.
n Developing a strategy to establish a program to identify “bad apple” providers, as required by federal regulations.
n Requesting and receiving an extension to use federal planning funds for the Electronic Health Records project.
Other efforts will require more time. Principal among these is implementing a strong monitoring program — especially for long-term care. Although more than 76 percent of the agency’s nearly $2 billion in expenditures pay for services to people who are elderly or who have disabilities, at times the agency has had only one or two staff members overseeing these programs. Realistically, this means many of these programs have been unmonitored.
Moreover, strategies used routinely in Medicaid agencies across the country — monthly analysis of program data to support improvement strategies — were not in use in the District. Accordingly, we cannot explain why the District’s health-care programs are among the most expensive in the nation, why there has been such rapid growth in the cost of home health and personal care, and whether there are opportunities with our managed-care providers to pursue more targeted, evidence-based care strategies. We will correct this.
Finally, to Hudman’s central point, there are no “have to” hires at DHCF. As director, I have full authority to build my leadership team. Today, the agency’s senior management staff includes four people with more than 60 years of combined health policy or direct management experience with public health insurance programs, including Medicaid. Together with agency staff, we have embraced the challenge of addressing the many problems encountered at DHCF.
Some believe that wisdom is learning what to overlook. Mayor Gray does not adhere to this philosophy.
The writer is the director of the D.C. Department of Health Care Finance.
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