Press release from The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government: Albuquerque – In response to a lawsuit filed by The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government (NMFOG), the Attorney General of New Mexico and the New Mexico Human Services Department (HSD) today (Oct. 18, 2013) released some new portions of the Behavioral Health Audit report, which HSD relied upon in halting Medicaid payments to health care providers in New Mexico until new management was put in place.
NMFOG had been forced to file the lawsuit in State District Court in Sante Fe in mid September after the Attorney General and HSD had refused NMFOG's request for the report, providing only a heavily redacted version.
The Attorney General and HSD still refuse to release the entire report. The version released today is still significantly redacted, and FOG will continue its efforts to obtain release of the full report. To see the full text of the released Behavioral Health Audit, see "NMFOG in the News" section on the www.nmfog.org website.
Please contact Greg Williams at Greg Williams at gwilliams@peiferlaw.com or (505) 238-8120 for more details.
Visit The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government for more, and find the complete press release here.
Also, please read an article, New portion of audit released; hundreds of pages still secret, from KUNM.org: A portion of an audit released Friday by the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office with many details blacked out shed little light on why the state froze Medicaid payments to 15 New Mexico behavioral health providers.
At the same time, the 58-page document raised tantalizing questions.
The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) released the document to the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, which posted the document on its website Friday evening.
Most of the 400-page audit remains undisclosed despite lawsuits by New Mexico In Depth, the Las Cruces Sun-News and the Foundation for Open Government demanding public release of the audit.
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Despite receiving the newly released portion of the audit, one officer of the Foundation for Open Government lamented Friday at how few revelations were contained in the document.
“We are not satisfied with what we received today,” FOG Board treasurer Gregory P. Williams was quoted by KRQE-TV in Albuquerque as saying. “We have not received anything of the substance of the report, so the public still has no idea why funding was stopped to all of these entities.”
Visit KUNM.org for more.
The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government is a member of NFOIC. –eds
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