Passport Health Plan drops secrecy as managed care expands

Passport Health Plan, the managed-care organization for Medicaid in the Louisville area, announced today that it would no longer fight to keep its records secret, deciding not to appeal a ruling by Attorney General Jack Conway that it had to give records to The Courier-Journal because most of its money comes from the state.

Passport’s interim CEO, Mark Carter, said in an article on the Louisville newspaper’s op-ed page that the decision “was not based upon legal advice but was made as part of the continuing evolution, perhaps even transformation, of the plan.” He said state Auditor Crit Luallen’s scathing report on the plan “has served as a very beneficial wake-up call to our organization.”

Today the state issued a request for proposals to expand Medicaid managed care to other parts of the state. Luallen told The C-J’s Deborah Yetter, “I think if government is going to privatize services … we have to have a higher level of accountability, not a lower level of accountability.” (Read more)