LINCOLN - The search began Monday, April 18 for entities that will best deliver health care benefits to hundreds of thousands of Nebraskans served by Medicaid.

Lawmakers say they appear to be on a better track this time after the recent costly bidding mistake involving the state's child welfare system contract.

“There is still a ways to go here,” said State Sen. John Arch of La Vista, chairman of the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee. “But I think it is heading in the right direction.”

Arch, who headed the special legislative study on the St. Francis situation, said he was encouraged that DHHS officials spent time more recently on “listening sessions” that gathered feedback about Heritage Health.

State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha said lessons have been learned in the wake of the state's acceptance of an extremely low bid from St. Francis Ministries for child welfare services that ultimately cost the state.

Although Cavanaugh remains cautious, she said state senators received assurances from the administrators handling Medicaid that a contract would not "automatically" go to the lowest bidder.

“I don’t, at this point, have reason to think they won’t be diligent,” she said of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Administrative Services, which handles state contracts.

Nebraska Medicaid announced Monday that it began to solicit bids from entities interested in providing health care benefits for the 340,000 low-income and disabled Nebraskans enrolled in Medicaid. The contract would last at least five years.

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