State News

Change is at Hand for State’s Welfare Funding

Thirty counties, including Bucks, applied for the new welfare program, but state law limited implementation of the block grants to only 20 counties for this year.

By Eric Boehm | PA Independent   HARRISBURG —  The governor wanted flexibility — to give counties the ability to change how they deliver services to the needy in Pennsylvania. What the governor got was a test program — one that’s available in just 20 of the state’s 67 counties — that will hand out block grants to some counties. That money will use the money to pay for an array of social services. State lawmakers had pushed back against Gov. Tom Corbett‘s plan to implement the new structure statewide, turning the idea into a pilot program with only 20 slots filled from 30 counties that applied. (Bucks County applied, but Montgomery County did not.) Now, 10 counties will be left waiting for next year  — when the administration hopes to try …

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State to Examine Medicaid Bills Before Paying

Pennsylvania's Department of Public Welfare will use a new computer system to examine all medical assistance claims before making payments.

By Melissa Daniels | PA Independent HARRISBURG — Preventing wasteful Medicaid payments is on the Department of Public Welfare’s to-do list, an effort bolstered by federal funding and sophisticated computer programming. The DPW this fall will roll out a computer system to examine all medical assistance payments before they’re issued. The program, called InvestiClaim, will review claims for errors, such as incorrect codes or duplication, to ferret out fraudulent or mistakenly filed claims. The department will look at suspicious claims before issuing the payments. The audit enhancements are expected to save $5 million a year, according to department projections. To set up the system, DPW got approval from the federal Centers for Medicaid and …

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