Medica won't bid on Medicaid in Iowa

Michaela Ramm The Gazette More stories from Michaela

Medica Health Plans will not bid to become an administrator of Medicaid plans in Iowa, a spokesperson told The Gazette this week.

Greg Bury, spokesman for the Minnesota-based insurance company, told The Gazette the company would not bid to become the third managed-care organization in the state’s Medicaid program.

“We just collected information about what the state was looking to do,” Bury said.

The state’s program previously had three managed-care organizations administering plans for Medicaid recipients. AmeriHealth Caritas left the state at the beginning of this year.

Medicaid enrollees’ choice of insurer was further limited when Amerigroup Iowa — one of the two remaining Medicaid administrators — announced in November it did not have capacity to take on new members. Those who were not moved to the state’s fee-for-service system were placed with the remaining insurer, UnitedHealthcare.

The Department of Human Services posted a request for proposals at the end of October to find another Medicaid administrator, which would be available to enrollees beginning July 1, 2019.

In a notice posted by DHS on Nov. 22, the department listed Medica as an entity intending to bid in the first round.

However, Bury said, Medica “never entered into formally making a bid for it.”

The Nov. 22 DHS notice also lists Iowa Total Care — a subsidiary of Centene Corporation — as posting an intent to bid.

Medica is currently the only insurer on the exchange for individual plans.