North Carolina Medicaid system comes under fire

The chief information officer for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services defended the state’s new Medicaid processing system following a critical audit and complaints from medical professionals before state legislators last week.

Joe Cooper, CIO for DHHS, said the NCTracks system is performing well and those overseeing the system should be “congratulated on seeing this project through a successful launch,” according to a report by television station WSOC.

That statement, though, is in contrast to a report filed last week by State Auditor Beth Wood, who said the system continues to fall short on addressing defects months after coming online in July.

The auditor’s report, which examined NCTracks operations through October, said the software has encountered more than 3,200 program defects.

Cooper made no direct mention of the audit during his presentation, but did note about 80 percent of the software defects identified so far have been corrected.

“Our first priority has been and will continue to be to reimburse all providers that continue to serve our state’s most vulnerable citizens,” Cooper said, according to WSOC.

Cooper said the system has paid more than $4 billion in claims so far in the current fiscal year, a number similar to what was paid out in the same period last year under the old system. More than $255 million in state and federal funds have been spent on the project so far, with costs budgeted to grow to $484 million by 2020.