Carelon Medical Benefits Management was due to take over Medicaid prior authorization requests for Maryland, Missouri, and Wisconsin on July 1 — but that transition is now on hold.
In a June 28 bulletin, the American Association for Homecare (AAHomecare) said the transition “has been postponed until further notice. Suppliers in Maryland, Missouri, and Wisconsin should continue to follow the current process when requesting authorizations for DMEPOS services under Medicaid.”
The three Medicaid programs — Maryland’s Wellpoint Maryland, Missouri’s Healthy Blue, and Wisconsin’s Anthem Blue Cross — all made the same announcement about the postponement on June 17. None of the programs indicated when the delay would be lifted or gave any reason for the change in plans.
In their announcements, the Medicaid programs described Carelon Medical Benefits Management Inc. as “an independent company providing utilization management services on behalf of the health plan.”