(2) The site must protect information that is personal or confidential. The parties to a consent decree or settlement agreement may provide for the confidentiality of the decision.

Sec. 3. 22 MRSA §42, sub-§7, ķI is enacted to read:

I.__By January 1, 2007 all hearing officers to whom the department refers appeals to the commissioner concerning MaineCare payment and cost report audit and review issues must be employed and supervised by a person or agency of State Government independent of the department and not subject to the department's supervision or discipline.

Sec. 4. Rules; effective date. The Department of Health and Human Services shall amend its rules governing reimbursement, contracting, grants, payments, cost reports and audits with respect to providers of health and community services to ensure that all of the requirements of this Act are applied to all audits completed on or after the effective date of this Act. Unless the law requiring the department to adopt or amend these rules indicates otherwise, rules adopted pursuant to this section are routine technical rules as defined in the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 5, chapter 375, subchapter 2-A.

SUMMARY

This bill requires several reforms and revisions of the practices of the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Audit for MaineCare and Social Services in order to ensure that providers of health care and other community services, subject to audit of their financial statements or their cost reports, are treated fairly and reasonably with respect to amounts paid to them and with respect to any changes in interpretation or policy that might affect amounts to be returned to the department retroactively. The bill requires changes in interpretation to be applied prospectively, bars disallowance of compensation costs if they are no greater in aggregate than those paid to state employees with comparable responsibilities and requires industry standards to be applied when determining reasonableness of costs. To encourage consistency, all informal review decisions, as well as appeal decisions, must be published. To promote fairness, the office that hears appeals of MaineCare payments must be made independent of the department by January 1, 2007.