September 20, 2021

NYS Council members who participate in our Thursday morning Public Policy calls know that our association has filed over 20 FOIL requests with state regulators including the Attorney General’s Office, the State Comptroller’s Office, the O agencies and DoH in pursuit of the information and data we are entitled to pertaining to health plan performance throughout the carve in of behavioral health services to Medicaid managed care.  Our FOIL requests are now almost a year old and while the formal pressure we continue to bring has resulted in NYS beginning to enforce Medical Loss Ratios and other protective metrics built into the requirements that govern our carve in, we have received precious little information we began requesting last year.

We have also filed FOILs seeking information regarding 120+ citations the Offices have issued to participating health plans since the beginning of the carve in of our services.  None of this information is currently available to the public and to date, we know of no enforcements that have led to monetary fines or penalties of the health plans for non compliance with the rules of  the carve in.

The Good News?

Today, two top aides to Gov. Kathy Hochul gave all state agency heads until Oct. 20 to detail specific changes that they will authorize for their departments “to increase the transparency” of their work such as making more information available on department websites, The Buffalo News reports.

We are cautiously optimistic.