A Kentucky-based health insurance provider will not pursue retroactive prescription co-payments from thousands of its elderly and disabled members in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey, a company spokesman said Sunday.
Humana Inc., based in Louisville, Ky., previously had informed members that the co-payments were erroneously waived and they would be billed for the unpaid costs, which averaged about $50 per member.
The news prompted protest from members and state officials, and Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell vowed the state would try to block Humana from pursuing payments from the 5,713 people affected in the state.
However, Humana spokesman Chris Curran said Sunday that the company made the error when enrolling the new members, and has been working with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and other agencies to remedy the situation.
The letter detailing the retroactive costs was sent to members to meet the agency’s statutory requirements, he said. They will receive a follow-up letter soon that assures them they will not be expected to pay, Curran said.
“We figured the affected members likely couldn’t afford those back payments,” he said. “As a result of the discussions, late last week we found out that we’d be able to grant a hardship waiver to all affected members in those affected states.”
In Connecticut, the problem involved 5,713 members of ConnPACE, the state prescription drug assistance program for low-income senior citizens and disabled people.
The members enrolled in the Medicare Part D prescription drug program that began last year, and also enrolled in Humana’s private Medicare-approved drug plan.
The state and federal drug benefits are combined so that ConnPACE members do not have higher out-of-pocket costs than they did before Medicare Part D began.
Rell initially directed the state Department of Social Services to shield low-income members from any attempts by Humana to collect the retroactive payments.
On its Web site, Humana said it has 3.5 million people enrolled in its stand-alone prescription drug plans.
State social services officials said the company erroneously put members from Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and other states into a category that did not charge co-payments when they got prescriptions at pharmacies in 2006.
