Jul 8, 2009 8:45 pm US/Eastern
State Halts Paychecks For Independent Nurses
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
"My Trevor is a darling 10-year-old boy who has complex medical special needs from being born premature," said Karen Zablonski, whose son has cerebral palsy and is legally blind and requires round the clock care.
His home nursing is covered by MassHealth, the Medicaid program in Massachusetts.
From her kitchen table in Royalston, Zablonski said, "I have a nurse who comes here 58 hours a week and handles all his medications, all his changes, and recently I found out she has not been paid by the state since April."
This is not surprising to Christine Coad, an independent pediatric nurse who provides complex care to children with needs like Trevor's. She's paid directly by MassHealth, but says her last compensation came on May 12.
"We were told we could apply for hardship, which meant calling MassHealth and begging for money that basically we had already earned," said Coad. "I was owed $9,000, I got half of it."
Independent nurses do not work for nursing or hospital groups.
Karen Zablonski says she's already had one nurse quit because she wasn't being paid.
"My concern is if we lose our home nursing, my son would have to go into a nursing home," said Zablonski.
Heath and Human Services spokesperson Jennifer Kritz issued this statement:
"A few weeks ago, MassHealth announced that it would temporarily hold some provider claims to allow us to manage our cash flow for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ended June 30.
"This temporary delay has happened in previous budget cycles, both last year and in previous Administrations. As we prepared to launch a new computer claims system in May, we sped up payments to providers so that we could ensure a smooth transition to the new system. Because the Legislature budgets a set amount of state funds for MassHealth, speeding up our payments earlier required that we slow down payments as we approached the end of the fiscal year.
"During this time, we accepted many requests for hardship payments from providers who were facing significant financial challenges, including many nursing and home health agencies. At this point, with the beginning of the new fiscal year on July 1, we restarted our normal weekly payment cycle and have paid claims submitted up to June 15."
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