State pays overdue $11 million in bills to provider of health care data

The State of Nebraska has now paid $11 million in delinquent bills to a state contractor who provides critical health care data to doctors and hospitals.

CyncHealth, a LaVista-based contractor that operates the statewide Heath Information Exchange, hadn’t been paid since early this year on its $14 million-a-year contract.

Data users pleaded for payment

As reported by the Examiner in September, that lack of payment prompted a group of hospitals and health care administrators who use the data to implore the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services to fulfill its contract and avoid threatening the flow of essential data.

Nebraska Methodist, CHI Health, Nebraska Medicine and Children’s Hospital were among the institutions that issued the plea to the DHHS.

Last week, both state and CyncHealth officials confirmed that the past-due bills, about $11 million, had been paid.

Avoided layoffs

“We’re not going to have lay off any people. We can continually deliver the data to the providers,” said Jaime Bland, CyncHealth’s president and CEO.

The firm, which employs about 78 workers, was borrowing money and had been unable to pay some subcontractors because of the lack of payments from the state on its contract.

State officials had blamed the problem on a change in federal Medicaid programs that had funded 90% to 100% of the costs of the HIE and a prescription drug monitoring program also run by CyncHealth.

Funds found

DHHS spokesman Jeff Powell said that the agency is using leftover funds appropriated to the department’s administrative budget to pay the contract.

Powell said the DHHS will submit a budget deficit request to the State Legislature to “serve as a longer-term solution to this budgeting issue.”

State Sen. John Arch, who represents the LaVista area, was involved in talks to get CyncHealth paid.

He said he was pleased the issue had been resolved for now.

“The availability of medical information is essential for the coordination of care by providers,” Arch, a former hospital administrator, said.

“We are at the front end of understanding the full impact of the HIE resource to improve health in Nebraska,” he added.

The Health Information Exchange allows doctors to access a patient’s past treatments at other clinics or hospitals, thus better guiding their health care decisions.

The state’s prescription drug monitoring program was launched as a way to prevent overdoses caused by patients addicted to dangerous opioids “doctor shopping” for duplicate prescriptions of the drugs.

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