If at First You Don't Succeed . . .

Maine has to have one of the longest running system-development sagas going. In 2001, the state awarded a contract to CNSI to build a Medicaid claims processing system. After numerous delays and cost overruns, Maine turned the system on in January 2005. The system immediately began misreading claims, resulting in millions of dollars worth of medical bills that doctors and hospitals field to go unpaid.

Now the state is preparing to fire up another system in January 2010. Maine's commissioner of the Health and Human Services Department, Brenda Harvey, is confident the latest system will pay Medicaid bills on time. Health care providers in the state aren't so sure.

Only 41 percent of the state's 4,785 providers have signed up to receive payments, and the deadline is Dec. 23, reported the Kennebec Journal.

Health care providers are preparing for the worse, too. Reports the Journal:

"We have done everything they've told us to do to sign up," said Paula Benson, who handles the books for her Augusta podiatrist husband Dr. Daniel Benson. "I've called and I leave messages and don't get return calls. I'm so afraid. I'm very nervous."

Heidi Mansir, executive director of Uplift Inc., which serves 80 adults with developmental disabilities, said this:

"I am worried, and it's because of the process last time and the problems we ran into."

Maine hasn't been the only state that has had trouble building a Medicaid claims processing system. So has Indiana, North Carolina, Nebraska, Wisconsin and many others.

Stay tuned.