Audit Rips Apart Florida Program Created to Aid Brain-Damaged Kids
Case managers at Florida’s $1.5 billion compensation program for catastrophically brain-damaged children didn’t consult specialists to determine whether medications, therapy, medical supplies and surgical procedures were “medically necessary” to the health of children in the plan.
They relied on Google instead.
That was one of the findings of a state audit released this week of the Florida Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Association, or NICA. The audit was ordered after the Miami Herald and ProPublica detailed how NICA has amassed nearly $1.5 billion in assets while sometimes arbitrarily denying or slow-walking care to severely brain-damaged children.
The report, from the Office of Insurance Regulation, which oversees the industry for the Florida Cabinet, also found that NICA arbitrarily decides who may be compensated for care — and how much. Administrators developed no system for resolving disputes with angry parents, discouraged parents from appealing denials to an administrative court, and didn’t maintain a system for storing and tracking denials or complaints, the audit said.
That was one of the findings of a state audit released this week of the Florida Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Association, or NICA. The audit was ordered after the Miami Herald and ProPublica detailed how NICA has amassed nearly $1.5 billion in assets while sometimes arbitrarily denying or slow-walking care to severely brain-damaged children.
The report, from the Office of Insurance Regulation, which oversees the industry for the Florida Cabinet, also found that NICA arbitrarily decides who may be compensated for care — and how much. Administrators developed no system for resolving disputes with angry parents, discouraged parents from appealing denials to an administrative court, and didn’t maintain a system for storing and tracking denials or complaints, the audit said.
https://www.propublica.org/article/these-findings-boggle-my-mind-audit-rips-apart-florida-program-created-to-aid-brain-damaged-kids
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FloriDUH.
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