Board of Examiners approve more than $1.8 billion in Medicaid contracts

The Board of Examiners on Tuesday approved a series of contracts with Medicaid service providers totaling more than $1.8 billion.

The two largest contracts are expansions of existing agreements with two companies that provide managed care services to Medicaid enrollees. Marta Jensen, administrator of the Health Care Financing and Policy Division, said the contract expansions recognize the impact of the Affordable Care Act, which dramatically increased the number of Nevadans eligible for Medicaid. She said there are now some 609,000 Nevadans in the program

The contract with Health Plan of Nevada expands that company’s total contract by just more than $1 billion to $2.63 billion. A total of $773.9 million was added to the contract with Amerigroup Nevada, for a total of $2.24 billion.

The funding for those contracts is 60 percent federal.

Eric Lloyd of Amerigroup told the board the expansion has reduced the number of uninsured in Nevada from 23 percent to just 11 percent. He said having those people in managed care instead of just going to the emergency room when something’s wrong is saving hospitals a large amount of money while greatly improving the care those people get.

The board approved a $26.8 million contract with Medical Transportation Management, Inc. to provide non-emergency transportation services for Medicaid patients. Nearly two-thirds of those costs are provided by the federal government.

Finally, the board approved contracts paying Churchill and Humboldt counties to continue administrative services to operate the Medicaid County Match programs there. Churchill will receive $480,990 and Humboldt $807,549.