KTKA

Beginning in January, the State will switch from it's current Medicaid contractor to two new Managed Care organizations. There has been some concern over whether one of those organizations, Unicare, will be ready in time for the new year.

"The individuals that receive health insurance through the Health Policy Authority are mainly those in the low income brackets, mainly those below 200 percent of the federal poverty level," says Andy Allison of the Kansas Health Policy Authority. And those are the people that may be affected by the changes.

When the State decided to switch to two new Medicaid providers, critics claimed one of the providers, Unicare, was not qualified to do business in the State. The concern was the Kansas Insurance Department would not grant a license to Unicare by the time their contract was scheduled to start on January 1st. The reason was Unicare didn't have a big enough network. In other words, not enough doctors' offices and hospitals had signed up with them.

But we spoke to Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger and she tells us she fully expects Unicare to be ready to go by that January 1st deadline. "There will not be any gap in services. People will have health care providers on Jan 1st," she says. Praeger met with Unicare on Wednesday. "We wanted to see what kind of progress they are making and I think they are making good progress," Praeger says.

The Health Policy Authority says Kansans could even see improved services because there will be two providers instead of just one. "Managed care firms can differ in quality, in services, and that's the kind of competition the State sought," says Allison.