TALLAHASSEE — Two historic bills enacting sweeping changes to Florida\u2019s Medicaid program won Senate and House approval Friday, placing the care of nearly 3 million beneficiaries in the hands of private companies and hospital networks.<\/p>\n
The plan\u2019s detractors say for-profit providers are making money scrimping on patient care. Patients have complained they couldn\u2019t get appointments with specialists. Several providers pulled out of the program, causing lapses in care as patients were bounced among plans.<\/p>\n
Sen. Joe Negron<\/strong>, who spearheaded the overhaul, said leaders have learned from the pilot program\u2019s shortcomings and includes increased oversight and more stringent penalties, including fining providers up to $500,000 if they drop out.<\/p>\n Gov. Rick Scott<\/strong>, a Republican who made millions as a health care CEO before his election, is expected to sign the bill. Federal health officials still have to sign off before the state can proceed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" TALLAHASSEE — Two historic bills enacting sweeping changes to Florida\u2019s Medicaid program won Senate and House approval Friday, placing the care of nearly 3 million beneficiaries in the hands of private companies and hospital networks. The plan\u2019s detractors say for-profit providers are making money scrimping on patient care. Patients have complained they couldn\u2019t get appointments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}