Students need Medicaid funds

It’s true: Receiving federal dollars often does exact a toll on the states doing the asking. What’s also true is that it’s worth the effort, especially for the needier Hawaii residents who would benefit from those funds.

It’s time to get serious about chasing down the money, something the state Department of Education has been remiss in doing but now vows to do.

The state, which has an uneven record of tapping federal assistance, has foregone millions in federal aid for special education students who are Medicaid-eligible.

Medicaid is a program covering health care primarily for the poor, combining federal and state dollars. There are more than 21,000 special education students; that includes some who are enrolled in Medicaid, although the DOE could not say how many. Of all Hawaii children, 41 percent are covered by Medicaid.

So plainly it’s a significant number of students who have learning- related medical conditions and are eligible for Medicaid services; the state could collect reimbursements for all of them.

And yet, according to a recent report by Honolulu Star-Advertiser writer Rob Perez, the DOE gets a paltry 1 percent of the annual Medicaid reimbursements that, on average, other states have claimed and received.

The hopeful news is that DOE officials now have affirmed their intent to bring in the assistance Hawaii is due for its eligible students. Better news would be seeing a bottom-line indication that the agency has cleared the hurdles.

In 2016, the state was reimbursed nearly $500,000 for Medicaid health services delivered during school hours. Setting aside that there were three states that received nothing at all, it’s hard to ignore the average receipt by states: $48 million.

Four states comparable in student population — Rhode Island, Montana, Maine and New Hampshire — collected in the $26 million to $38 million range.

Even given that socioeconomic conditions vary from state, that is simply too great a differential to explain away.

The explanation, as far as it goes, is that Hawaii is just one of a number of states still figuring out the complexity of this particular program.

Fortunately, schools Superintendent Christina Kishimoto, one year into the job, has taken steps to turn things around.

In order to draw down these funds, schools must submit the required billing records and meet federal requirements. These include securing permission from the students’ parents to release their child’s confidential health information to the federal Centers for Medicare &Medicaid Serv­ices, the overseeing agency.

This month, the DOE distributed revised consent forms to parents, advising families of their rights. That should help.

It would also help if someone higher up the administrative chain of command could help prod things along. The Office of the Lieutenant Governor in the past has shouldered the role of marshalling untapped sources of federal dollars, and could do so again.

And the public schools don’t comprise the only state service that could use that help. An often- cited but pertinent example is that the state Department of Transportation has in the past left millions of federal dollars on the table as well. Taking a look at the condition of state highways, it’s distressing that every available resource wouldn’t be sought.

State Rep. Sylvia Luke, who chairs the House Finance Committee, expressed her frustration that the DOE for years has not jumped through the hoops required to claim these federal funds. Because of a federal consent decree, Hawaii is mandated to provide educational services to special education students, so, Luke said, it’s easier simply to ask the Legislature for what’s needed.

Whether or not that’s true, the state needs to access available resources more effectively. The needs are too great, and taxpayer funds too limited, to do anything less.