By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, Feb. 26
The state”s MediKan program probably won”t be overhauled for at least another year.
“We”re going to recommend that MediKan be funded at its FY 2007 levels in FY 2008
in other words, keep it where it is for another year,” said Sen. Dwayne Umbarger, R-Thayer, chairman of the budget subcommittee that oversees spending on social services.
The subcommittee is expected to formally announce its recommendations later this week.
Umbarger, who”s also chairman of the full Senate Ways and Means Committee, said he and others on the subcommittee do not want to rush changes to the program.
“Some of this should go to interim,” he said, referring to the months between legislative sessions, during which recommendations are developed for the coming year.
MediKan is a state-funded program that”s designed to bridge the gap between adults
most of them mentally ill
becoming disabled and receiving federal disability payments, a process that often takes two to three years.
Established in 1973, MediKan has been the subject of repeated reforms because more than two-thirds of those receiving aid do not qualify for federal disability payments. And since the program does not receive federal funds, it”s considered expensive.
MediKan is expected to cost the state almost $29 million in Fiscal 2007, which ends June 30.
At any given time, about 4,000 people are on the state”s MediKan rolls
1,000 are in Sedgwick County.
One-fourth of the MediKan budget is spent on prescription drugs
psychotropics, mostly. Other major expenses include hospital stays and visits to community mental health centers.
Last year, legislators directed the Kansas Health Policy Authority to figure out how to restrict MediKan to people who were eligible for federal disability payments.
The health policy authority, in turn, started applying the federal disability standards to the MediKan application process. The number of applications approved soon dropped
from 335 in August to 41 in November.
“It”s a nightmare,” said Sherrie Watkins-Alvey, a benefits manager at Wyandot Center for Community Behavioral Healthcare in Kansas City.
Watkins-Alvey said applicants
many of whom are homeless or near-homeless
are first expected to apply for federal disability payments, and then apply for MediKan, then sign up for a telephone interview with the health policy authority”s presumptive disability unit.
The interviews, she said, aren”t for another 30 to 45 days.
“You”d think the system would be set up to move people through, but it”s not,” Watkins-Alvey. “It takes months to navigate.”
According to health policy authority records, about 29 percent of the MediKan applicants do not keep their telephone-interview appointments.
Most of these appointments are missed, Watkins-Alvey said, due to the applicants” mental illness or because they”re living on the street and their lives are in turmoil.
“These are people who”ve exhausted all their resources. They have nothing,” Watkins-Alvey said.
Advocates for the poor say they have no way to measure what happens to people who are not considered disabled enough to qualify for MediKan.
“The assumption is that with “presumptive disability” there will be a shift to community mental health centers, state hospitals and jails
with no additional funding,” said Paul Johnson, an advocate with the Kansas Catholic Conference.
Johnson and others say they”ve been frustrated by the health policy authority”s willingness to restrict access to MediKan without first having an alternate program in place.
“For years, MediKan has been the last remaining safety net for these folks and, slowly, we”re seeing it shredded,” said Robert Harder, a former Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services secretary who now lobbies for the United Methodist Church of Kansas and the Big Tent Coalition, a collection of groups that advocate for the poor and people with disabilities.
At the health policy authority, Deputy Director Andy Allison vowed to introduce a plan for streamlining the application process by mid-April.
Allison said his office and SRS are developing an alternate program for those who are not eligible for MediKan.
“We”ve been concerned about this ever since we began to see the steady decline in the number of MediKan enrollees,” Allison said.
“We”ve really been focused not so much on whether to maintain the MediKan program
we certainly have no plans to change the direction of MediKan per se in terms of whether it exists
but rather what to do about the residual population, those who aren”t getting through the screening process.”
MediKan and General Assistance are expected to cost the state $29 million and $8.5 million, respectively, in fiscal year 2007, which ends June 30.
Anyone on MediKan is automatically eligible for General Assistance, a state-funded program that provides up to $197 a month in cash assistance. They”re also eligible for about $150 in food stamps.
General Assistance is expected to cost the state $8.5 million in fiscal year 2007.
Dave Ranney is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
dranney@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 128.