Yes!!!!!!!

I am the guardian for an adult with a severe disability. I oversee his care and living conditions.

The cost that are billed each month to Medicaid are unbelievable. Care providers bill in "units" that are actually a 15 minute visit. Every service is billed in a code, so even if I try to audit a monthly bill it is next to impossible to identify services received without the master code book to convert services to the proper code.

Since so many services have been "contracted" out to private health care firms, the checks and balances have all but disapeared.

Any reports to medicaid of billing irregularities are met with resistance. As there are very few alternitives to care providers you get the feeling Medicaid does not want to look at problems too deeply as they are not capable of providing an alternate service provider.

Prime example: Several months ago I found that all of the light bulbs in his room were burned out. I reported to the care provider he needed his light bulbs replaced. I had searched the house and there were no replacement bulbs in the house. The next week I checked on him again and the lights were still out. Again I brought this to the attention of the care provider, another week and no action. I replaced all the burnned out bulbs in the house after he was in the dark for two weeks.

This month I checked on him and found that two of the smoke detectors in the house were chirping constantly because the batteries were bad. I informed care provider the smoke detectors needed new batteries. Another week passed and I found the detectors still chirpping. Not only were these things very annoying for someone trying to sleep I was a dangerous situation in that the house had no smoke detection.

Here is how it was handled. The worker reported it to the staff coordinator. The staff coordinator reported it to the residential services supervisor the next week. The supervisor forwarded the report to the maintenence crew (after about 4 days). The maintence crew added it to the job works pending and this is where it is today.

I replaced the batteries myself and now I am just waiting to see how long it will take them to realise that these have already been replace.

The worker in the house told me that they were not permitted to have spare light bulbs (or batteries) in the house and that all maintenence issues had to be requested through supervisors.

So in essence it takes no fewer that 5 persons to replace a light bulb or change a battery with each of these persons billing Medicaid in 15 minute units for their time.

Lord watch out for those that do not have a gaurdian looking out for their interests.