FRANKFORT, Ky. (July 2, 2018) – The Kentucky HEALTH team is working through impacts from the Judge’s order on IT, coverage, and communications issues relating to a number of stakeholders. This ruling gave the Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) 30 hours to undo 1 ½ years of meticulous planning across multiple partners and cabinets.
It is great that people are talking about the importance of routine vision and dental coverage. Unfortunately, annually fewer than 10% of Medicaid beneficiaries have taken advantage of this coverage. Kentucky HEALTH’s My Rewards program is designed to INCREASE people’s use of their vision and dental coverage by incentivizing them with earned credits to the My Rewards Account. However, when Kentucky HEALTH was invalidated by the court, the My Rewards program was eliminated, and there is no longer a funding mechanism in place to pay for dental and vision services.
We hope that we can work together to quickly resolve the fallout from the court ruling, so that the My Rewards program can be reinstated.
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The Cabinet for Health and Family Services is home to most of the state's human services and healthcare programs, including the Department for Medicaid Services, the Department for Community Based Services the Department for Public Health, the Department for Aging and Independent Living and the Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities. CHFS is one of the largest agencies in state government, with nearly 8,000 full- and part-time employees located across the Commonwealth focused on improving the lives and health of Kentuckians.