In the 2008 legislative session, the Georgia General Assembly passed Senate Bill 507, a bill that is certain to impact the provision of services to Medicaid-eligible children in Georgia. Click here to read an article that will explain the relationship between this new legislation and the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Testing (EPSDT) provisions of the federal Medicaid Act and a report on a Spring 2008 decision from a federal court in Georgia in a case brought to enforce these EPSDT provisions.
Click here to read the text of Senate Bill 507.
Click here to read a basic explanation of EPSDT
Click here to read a copy of the Opinion and Order entered by Judge Thrash dated February 17, 2010, granting GAO’s Second Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction in Hunter v, Medows, Civil Action File No. 1:08-cv-2930-TWT. Hunter is a companion case to Moore v. Medows. Both cases involve EPSDT and the respective roles of the treating physician in prescribing treatment and the state’s role in reviewing the doctor’s order for treatment of children under age 21 years who are Medicaid-eligible. Both cases involve the state’s partial denial of nursing services ordered for these children by their treating physicians. The gist of the Opinion and Order is that the state may review a treating physician’s order for fraud, abuse of the Medicaid system, or whether the treatment prescribed is within the reasonable standards of medical care. “Otherwise, the state may not second guess a physician’s prescribed treatment for his patient.”