For the first time in its history, the nation’s largest retailer Wal-Mart is coming face-to-face with the nation’s largest insurer, Medicaid.
Wal-Mart is partnering with the Arkansas Children’s Hospital to provide legal support for Medicaid patients and their families, free of charge.
This type of arrangement means Wal-Mart’s lawyers will be taking on the government and other entities in order to help sick children get access to programs, services and equipment that they have been denied.
Wal-Mart’s general counsel Jeff Gearhart said the company’s in-house team of 142 lawyers will help patients with an array of issues associated with Medicaid, a jointly-funded Federal and state health insurance program that covers about 44 million low-income people, including children and special needs patients.
For the most part, he said the bulk of cases Wal-Mart’s attorneys will work on can be resolved through due diligence, requiring a few hours of pro bono legal time.
Only rarely will any case proceed to litigation, he said.
For instance. Tackling Medicaid’s administrative and bureaucratic hurdles are on Wal-Mart’s list
“Families on Medicaid are hit with a myriad of red tape when they’re in the hospital,” Gearhart said.
So Wal-Mart lawyers are being trained to help families navigate Medicaid in basic ways, such as filling out the right forms, and in more complex ways such as procuring insurance for expensive treatments and medical devices like specialized wheelchairs.
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One Response
This is a big help both to the Medicaid-eligible patients and to Wal-Mart itself. The patients will get the medical care they are entitled to, and Wal-Mart will get reimbursed for its services.