OPEGA’S PROGRESS

Doctors, or any other health care providers in Maine who wondered how this year’s Medicaid-computer disaster occurred, what the initial state reaction was and where things stood now had limited choices for finding out. They might try calling various offices of the Department of Health and Human Services or hectoring state legislators or relying on news stories.

At least those were the options until last week when the Legislature’s Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability issued a review of the Medicaid situation. The review showed why so many lawmakers supported this new office.

In 28 pages plus extensive appendices, including a summary and recommendations for action, the work lays out the background of the problem, steps that have been taken to address it, progress made or not and remaining issues. Specifically, the Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee wanted to know whether lawmakers were receiving accurate information about progress of the repairs.

That’s answered too: Yes, with the caveat that lawmakers “may be limited in their ability to perform effective oversight by an insufficient under- standing of all the significant challenges and risks involved.”

This is only the second report from the office – the first concerned adoption assistance – but its value is evident to anyone reading the clear, well-organized summary of what was a sprawling, messy meltdown. Approved in 2003, Opega, as the office is commonly called, had a slow start for political reasons, but last summer began its mission of providing lawmakers and the public with nonpartisan accounts of government operations. The Maine Legislature has operated on hope and good intentions in too many areas for too many years. Opega brings assessment that should reduce guesswork and increase cooperation among lawmakers.

For instance, the report on the Medi-caid computer – technically, the Maine Claims Management System – lists numerous, detailed ways the claims system could be improved, including by teaching more people within the MECMS network how to find answers for callers with questions. When legislators are working on issues such as training, they aren’t picking partisan fights over any number of other issues.

Beth Ashcroft, Opega’s director who wrote the MECMS review on her own, said she wishes it could have been completed earlier. Nevertheless, the repairs to the computer system are expected to continue well into 2006, so it will remain relevant. And other reports are due out soon – one on statewide information systems is expected in late January, and others on economic development programs and guardian ad litems are to follow that.

As this body of review builds, the expectation of government performance should rise generally, and lawmakers will have valuable information in hand when it does not.