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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Huckleberries Online

Medicaid Dispute Threatens Clinic

Nick Maniscalco, 26, was in a car accident in 2008 near Walla Walla. It left him with a brain injury, and he has had a long, tough recovery. (SR photo: Dan Pelle)

Without the many hours he spent sitting inside a submarine-like oxygen chamber in Spokane Valley, North Idaho resident Nick Maniscalco doubts his long recovery from a traumatic brain injury would have been as successful as it has. And Holly Dodge, a Post Falls woman who has a variety of debilitating syndromes, said high-pressure oxygen therapy rid her of bad headaches and improved her mobility. “As time goes on you get more and more energetic,” Dodge said. “Your body just feels better.”

Both of them went through a series of treatments at Spokane Hyperbaric Center, and Idaho Medicaid reimbursed the business for a portion of their bills. Maniscalco and Dodge were among 26 Idaho residents whose “off-label” treatments there in 2010 and 2011 were partially paid by Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income and disabled people. But the conditions of those 26 patients were not on the approved list of illnesses and injuries for which Medicare and Medicaid reimburse hyperbaric oxygen therapy providers/Scott Maben, SR. More here.



D.F. Oliveria
D.F. (Dave) Oliveria joined The Spokesman-Review in 1984. He currently is a columnist and compiles the Huckleberries Online blog and writes about North Idaho in his Huckleberries column.

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