- December 15, 2025
Following the March 29 signing of a bill by Gov. Rick Scott requiring counties to pay old and/or disputed Medicaid charges, the Flagler County Board of County Commissioners, at its April 3 meeting, talked options.
“You’ll have more than $330,000 in back-penalties, not including costs moving forward,” County Administrator Craig Coffey told the board. “It’s real money, and it has real effects on our budget.”
The charges in question are disputed because of what County Attorney Al Hadeed calls a “flawed” electronic-billing system, which charges counties Medicaid bills for people who may not have resided in the county at the time of their treatment.
“The state Legislature is aware that this is flawed data,” he said. “The period of time that is being reviewed by the state to reach this number dates back to 2001.”
According to Hadeed, the system is also skewed to dissuade counties from disputing charges. Without a dispute, a 15% discount is granted, as well as five-year period to pay up. But a dispute, he said, means a “huge” filing fee.
All charges must either be paid or formally disputed by Sept. 1.
“It seems that (the Legislature) is balancing the state budgets on the backs of the counties,” Commissioner Alan Peterson said. “That’s very, very unfortunate.”
“We need to take a proactive approach,” Commissioner Milissa Holland added, suggesting Flagler consider hiring a “point person” whose sole duty it is to review charges. “Even if you save 10, 15% … anything we can do to not further burden our taxpayers is worthwhile.”
Coffey estimates Flagler’s future Medicaid bills to be more than $600,000 annually, compared to the county’s previous yearly charges of about $400,000.
“From now until Aug. 1 is a very critical time for equity and fairness,” Hadeed said, adding that he and other Florida county attorneys recently had a “mega-conference call” to strategize their next move. “The burden is going to be on us, unfortunately, to try to develop an information base.”
