One of the three private companies involved in the management of Iowa’s Medicaid program is pulling out. AmeriHealth Caritas had been managing care for about a third of Iowa Medicaid patients. Iowa Department of Human Services director Jerry Foxhoven says the state will try to find a new company to replace AmeriHealth.

 

The 200-thousand Iowans who’re immediately impacted by this latest change, though, will get a letter in the mail and a new insurance card — switching them from AmeriHealth to one of the two remaining companies. AmeriHealth will stop managing care for those patients on November 30th. Foxhoven has been negotiating new contracts with the three managed care organizations since he started as D-H-S director in June.

 

The companies reportedly had been complaining the costs of care for Medicaid patients in Iowa had exceeded their initial estimates. Democrats in the legislature say the announcement that AmeriHealth is pulling out of Iowa’s Medicaid program is evidence the move to “privatize” Medicaid “is a complete disaster.”