By KBIA
Columbia, MO. – Officials in the state Department of Social Services say they will wait until next week to see if they need to take anymore action to correct problems that have sprung from a wrong number being printed on thousands of Medicaid forms.
A Montana woman says she has been getting hundreds of calls this week from Missouri Medicaid recipients asking her about the state's impending benefit cuts.
Her 1-800 number, which she uses for her own business, was accidentally printed on the forms as a help-line number.
Brian Kinkade of Social Services says there is no excuse for the error.
"This is not right at all. This is a mistake, and we want to do good work and want to provide good value to the taxpayer, and this is a failure in that case," Kinkade said. "We'll take steps to hopefully prevent it from happening again."
Kinkade says the woman has told state officials the number of calls has begun to taper off. He says the department wants to avoid reprinting the forms, which would cost about $80,000.