The CMS is ratcheting up scrutiny of state Medicaid programs. 

The agency announced Tuesday that it is boosting audits to confirm that Medicaid beneficiaries are correctly identified as expansion or pre-expansion enrollees. States receive higher federal match rates of around 90% for expansion enrollees, while the match rate can be as low as 50% for pre-expansion enrollees.

"This imbalance in the federal matching rate creates financial risks for taxpayers by incentivizing states to shift cost to the federal government," CMS Administrator Seema Verma told reporters Tuesday. "This requires us to make sure that states are making accurate eligibility determinations." 

The CMS also said it will audit states found by HHS' Office of Inspector General to be at high risk for enrolling ineligible people in Medicaid. California, Kentucky and New York have been cited by the OIG for doing this in the past. Read more here.

SAMHSA Is Accepting Applications for Up to $50 Million To Help Tribes Address Opioid Crisis

Capital Region providers and agencies who deal directly with the opioid crisis every day have major concerns about the quality and length of local treatment programs for people battling addiction, according to  a new Siena College survey.

The survey of more than 600 professionals in the medical, mental health, social service, nonprofit and law enforcement fields found that a majority believe treatment programs aren't working with addicted individuals long enough and blame insurance companies for refusing to cover comprehensive, adequate treatment.

"As bad as the public thinks this epidemic is, stakeholders know it's worse," said Don Levy, director of the Siena College Research Institute.

88% of the professionals who were surveyed said the epidemic of opioid-related overdose deaths has gotten worse in recent years, and more than half expect it to continue to get worse. Read more here.

A total of 51 county governments across New York have opted to sue pharmaceutical firms, seeking to hold them accountable for the costs of responding to an epidemic of fatal opioid overdoses.

Stephen Acquario, director of the New York State Association of Counties, said that taxpayers have had to shoulder tremendous costs ranging from jailing addicts, to getting emergency medical care to those in the throes of an overdose and using morgues to hold the corpses of those who get a fatal dose. The counties bringing the suits make up the bulk of New York's 62 counties.

The lawsuits, Acquario said in an interview, seek reimbursement for those costs based on the claims that the drug companies used "false and misleading marketing campaigns" to promote the powerful prescription pain relievers to doctors who prescribe them. Read more here.

HealthlinkNY has secured connection funding and is currently offering New York-based healthcare organizations up to $89,000 to engage in  health information exchange (HIE) use until September 30, 2018.

The HIE will offer discounts up to $76,000 to healthcare organizations that connect to the HIE. Additionally, the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) is offering healthcare organizations $13,000 to connect and engage in health data exchange with their local HIE.

Healthcare organizations will receive funding on a first-come, first-serve basis.