I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Democratic Lt. Gov. Diane Denish and Republican Susana Martinez this week told nmpolitics.net what changes they’d like to see in how New Mexico manages and administers services to the affected population.
Behavioral health is a complex, below-the-radar subject…
The New Mexico Behavorial Health Collaborative has decided not put the four-year $1 billion contract out to bid—but the group recommended that the issue be rediscussed in six months, as more is learned about national health care reform and changes to Medicaid.
The group that oversees how the state’s behavioral health services are administered will decide Tuesday whether to recommend dropping the company currently managing the system or to keep them on.
Judging by what state officials heard in a series of…
Four months after Gov. Bill Richardson seemingly set in motion a change in the state’s four-year $1 billion behavioral health contract New Mexico appears to be leaning toward making no change. Providers and others across the state have told state officials in a series of recent public hearings that a transition would create havoc for them and the clients they serve.
The state wants the public to weigh in to help shape the next behavioral health contract before seeking proposals in June from firms interested in bidding for the contract. A series of sessions around the state to take public comments…
Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, D-Albuquerque, wants to abolish the state behavioral health collaborative.
The collaborative, formed in 2005, aimed to make more efficient the delivery of services to the mentally ill and those struggling with substance abuse.
In an extraordinary move, Gov. Bill Richardson on Monday directed a state agency that oversees behavioral health services to put the state’s $1 billion contract out to bid only seven months into the troubled tenure of Optum Health Care.
Under an agreement announced Thursday, the state’s behavioral health provider will not pay a “penalty,” but will underwrite two funds that will be used to pay to monitor their work and to help providers recover losses incurred when the company failed to pay them on time.
As soon as OptumHealth took over New Mexico’s behavioral health system, its claims management system failed under the crush of real-world use.
OptumHealth New Mexico, the firm slapped with a penalty of more than $1 million in October for not paying hundreds of providers for services already rendered—sometimes for months—is disputing the state’s action, a state official announced Thursday.
In October, New Mexico fined Optum more than $1 million and threatened to cancel its $1 billion contract for managing the state’s behavioral health services after hundreds of providers said they hadn’t been paid in months. Now the company says it is fixing the system–but the state may have to come up with Plan B if the situation doesn’t improve.
An emergency meeting has been scheduled next week to discuss the status of the state’s contract with a firm that took over management of the state’s behavioral health care system July 1.
Last week the Collaborative announced that OptumHealth…
Once Value Options found out it lost New Mexico’s behavioral health contract, it started cutting back on children’s services to increase profits, a group of providers charges. The state has threatened to file a temporary restraining order to force the company to continue care until the contract is up at the end of June.
