By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

The head of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services promised Tuesday that all the states would be fully reimbursed for their spending to fill prescriptions for thousands of people left stranded by the federal government’s new drug program.

Today, Mike Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will meet with Gov. John Baldacci to discuss the Medicare Part D situation in Maine.

The state continues to spend $100,000 a day on medications for elderly and disabled Mainers who signed up for the new program, which began Jan. 1.

The department said Tuesday that it plans to use some states as demonstration sites, piloting ways to improve enrollment, speed up state reimbursements and reduce Medicare expenditures.

There have been some improvements recently, with better staffing for a federal hot line, improved subsidies to low-income customers and newly promised reimbursement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. But state officials say thousands of people are still having problems with co-pays, pharmacists are having trouble getting Medicare payments and some of the state’s very poorest people are having issues with their drug plan enrollment.

“We haven’t seen any movement on that front,” said Jude Walsh, who heads prescription drug programs for the Governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance.

Although they say it isn’t a firm deadline, federal officials have set a goal of Feb. 15 to cut state assistance and get the Medicare Part D program up and running on its own.

Walsh isn’t sure that can happen so soon, and she doesn’t want Maine to give up its safety net before Medicare is ready.

“I’m concerned, considering the program wasn’t ready on the first and it’s still not ready on the 24th,” she said.

Medicare Part D was supposed to be an easy way for the country’s elderly and disabled to get low-cost medications. Problems arose immediately. Some people weren’t in the computer system, even though they had proof they were enrolled in the new drug program. Some were told they had a plan, but it didn’t cover the medications they needed. Others got a plan and their drugs but were charged up to $100 when they had expected a $1 co-pay.

Thousands of concerned pharmacists and distressed customers flooded the state’s drug hot line.

On Jan. 3, the state held an emergency conference call with pharmacists and told them to fill all prescriptions. Customers would get a 30-day supply of medication, paid under their old prescription plan. The state promised payment, calling it a “safety net.”

Since then, Maine has paid about $3 million for 50,000 claims. That total rises by about $100,000 a day, Walsh said.

Earlier figures put the total higher, but that included unprocessed claims.

Copy the Story Link