SIM

Thursday the Equity and Access Council delivered to the SIM Steering Committee a draft report with recommendationsto avoid underservice in SIM’s planned payment reforms. Advocates were successful in getting a provision in the SIM final plan that prohibited payment of shared savings to provider networks that systematically denied needed care to generate those savings. The…

Monday the Lieutenant Governor’s office announced the award of SIM’s first grants from federal funds; two of the four recipients are represented on theSIM Steering Committee. The members represent Northeast Medical Group (Yale-New Haven affiliate) and St. Vincent’s Health Partners. This would have been prohibited under the state’s Code of Ethics but for a loophole…

Today’s CTNJ is reporting on the SIM ethics debate. The article points out that the weak conflict of interest policy proposed by SIM staff and adopted by the steering committee admits “Members of the advisory bodies may participate in program design and development decisions, even if they or their organizations may potentially reap a benefit.”…

In response to the recent state Ethics Board Declaratory Ruling the SIM steering committee took up ethics at their meeting last week. The Ethics Board found that because SIM committee members are appointed by the Lieutenant Governor, SIM was not covered by the state Code of Ethics for Public Officials that applies to similar policymaking…

  Today’s CT News Junkie highlights the ethics loophole that has allowed a SIM steering committee member to apply for SIM funds to his organization. The loophole in the law, identified by the Citizen’s Ethics Board, is that appointees of the Lieutenant Governor are not subject to the Public Official’s Code of Ethics. The Code…

At yesterday’s meeting, the state Ethics Commission issued an opinion that, due to a giant loophole in the law, SIM committee and Consumer Advisory Board (CAB) members are not subject to the Code of Ethics for Public Officials but acknowledged significant potential for conflicted interests and so recommend that SIM adopt such a policy voluntarily.…

Yesterday’s SIM Consumer Advisory Board (CAB) meeting to choose consumer representatives to SIM committees was again held in secret. An FOI complaint is pending over their lack of transparency. This time applicants were notified that their applications were being reviewed but less than 24 hours before the meeting. One applicant requested, as allowed under state…

Yesterday the CT Health Foundation hosted an interesting conference highlighting SIM plans from leading states – VT, OR, MN, and ME. The conference started and ended with reports from CT’s DSS about our significant Medicaid successes in improving quality and access while controlling costs – and how that progress was only possible when we shifted…

Monday the Lieutenant Governor responded to a letter signed by independent advocates signed by twenty independent consumer advocates and providers raising concerns about SIM’s plans for Medicaid. In her letter, the Lieutenant Governor agreed that CT’s Medicaid program has become a national model of success, improving access to care, raising quality and controlling costs. Those achievements resulted…