MNsure Continues to Plague Counties, Enrollees

ST. CLOUD -- MNsure's electronic enrollment system continues to cause problems for clients of Medical Assistance and counties who manage their cases.

Stearns County Gateway Services Division Director Janet Goligowski says some enrolled members are seeing their coverage dropped without warning and for no reason. Others are enrolled, but the Minnesota Eligibility Technology System, known as METS, system doesn't reflect their coverage to the health care providers. She says it has meant canceled appointments and unfilled prescriptions for some members.

Examples of some of the problems include, a child whose cancer treatments were abruptly halted, a woman who's c-section was canceled just days before the procedure and people with disabilities not receiving their care.

Goligowski says her staff has been working overtime to manually get the coverages restored.  It's resulted in a huge spike in overtime hours in her department. She says overtime it's jumped from 518 hours in 2013 to 1,330 last year. She's estimating 2,500 overtime hours will be needed in 2016 while the state works to fix the problems.