Louisiana Medicaid Failed To Ensure MCO Behavioral Health Network Adequacy

The Louisiana Department of Health Office of Behavioral Health (OBH) has not ensured that the state’s Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs) have sufficiently large networks of mental health and addiction disorder specialists. Additionally, OBH has not ensured that the MCOs contracted with licensed specialized behavioral health (SBH) professionals, or ensured the accuracy of the network listings. About 44.8% of the 3,438 network professionals listed by the MCOs as licensed mental health professionals did not meet licensure requirements. An OBH secret shopper survey to test the MCOs listings for network psychiatrists found that 62% did not accept Medicaid . . .