Two bills with bipartisan support would help therapists in private practice who are fed up with the convoluted Medicaid payment system. They follow investigative reporting by The Sun and Colorado News Collaborative.

It’s been a rough year for Colorado mental health therapists willing to care for low-income patients on Medicaid. 

Some were ordered last fall to pay back thousands of dollars to a middle-man contractor the state hires to handle billing for therapy they’d already provided, so-called “clawbacks” that threatened to close small clinics. Others quit taking Medicaid patients because they couldn’t keep up with the burdsomesome paperwork requirements or waited more than a year to even get approval to treat them. 

Now, state lawmakers are looking for a reckoning.  

Two pieces of legislation sailing through the state legislature with bipartisan support take aim at the opaque and convoluted process of reimbursing independent clinics that take on Medicaid clients. Both bills are expected to pass as the legislature heads into its final three weeks.