PR Newswire, Monday, December 23, 1996 8:33 AM EDT.

A group of community leaders called for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to rescind a $12 million contract with Benova, Inc., the corporation hired to enroll a11 persons eligible for Medicaid in managed care in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. Larry Hochendoner, the Executive Director of the Philadelphia AIDS Consortium, the region's only consumer/provider advocacy coalition for HIV/AIDS services explained, "the community is outraged by the gross mismanagement being allowed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, through this contract."

The issue at hand is not one of HIV and AIDS, according to Kiyoshi Kuromiya, one of the region's leading AIDS advocates and Executive Director of Critical Path AIDS Project. "The issue is that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is simply wasting $12 million by continuing this contract with Benova, a contract that they are either incapable or unwilling to fulfill. This is gross fiscal mismanagement, bordering on fraud, and it must be corrected. This has now become an issue for all taxpayers living in this Commonwealth and it has become an issue that must be addressed immediately."

The contract Hochendoner refers to is one that arose out of the Department of Public Welfare's mandatory managed care initiative, HealthChoices, which has already begun voluntary enrollment and is expected to begin mandatory enrollment in early 1997. This program will have a tremendous effect on all of those being forced to enroll, and will have an even greater impact on people living with HIV and AIDS. In fact, this will affect the vast majority of the people living with HIV and AIDS in the region. However, the transition proposed by the Commonwealth is both unacceptable to people living with AIDS and HIV and to the general Medicaid eligible population, most especially those members with special needs.

In order to facilitate the enrollment process for these individuals, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has entered into a $12 million agreement with Benova, Inc. In essence, Commonwealth has entered into this contract, intending to ease the transition for people receiving Medicaid into managed care. According to Roy Hayes, co-chair of the consumer caucus of people living with AIDS, "Benova is entirely unprepared to deal with the realities of enrollment into a mandatory managed care system. Last year alone, according to the Associated Press, an advisory panel recommended suspension of Benova for poor performance in a similar project in Connecticut."

While Benova is supposed to ease the enrollment process for people entering the program they have missed the mark completely. To date, there is no existing list of HIV specialists available to assist persons with HIV and AIDS in their enrollment. Instead, when a person living with HIV or AIDS contacts Benova, they are provided with telephone numbers for the four participating HMOs and asked to contact those organizations directly. If the client is to call the HMO directly the should be no need for enrollment counselors, like those supposedly provided by Benova. This is a completely inadequate process. SOURCE Philadelphia AIDS Consortium

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