Center for Health Care Financing’s work cited in HealthLeaders Media article

The Center for Health Care Financing's work in identifying funds that states are owed as a result of a Social Security Administration (SSA) error was included in an article on HealthLeaders Media.

In the error, some disabled enrollees were classified as eligible for Supplemental Security Income when they were actually eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance. As a result of that, states used their own Medicaid funds to cover the care that Medicare should have provided, to the tune of an estimated $4.3 billion. The error dates back to cases in the 1970s. A special disability workload project was developed by the SSA to work through the errors.

According to the article, the Center for Health Care Financing has identified the amount due to individual states, including $3.5 million for Wyoming to $821.2 million for California.

States have reached out for help from the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, asking her to use the Medicare and Medicaid demonstration program authority to resolve the longstanding issue. She sent a letter October 27 to the National Association of Medicaid Directors, saying she lacked the “the statutory authority to use my demonstration authorities to this end.” She said she would work with states to explore “possible legislative solutions.”

Read the full HealthLeaders Media article.