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Office of the Health Care Advocate seeks two staff and warns against merging behavioral‑health advocate into consumer office
Summary
Acting Health Care Advocate Kathy Holt told the committee the office needs two additional staff for outreach, data and case‑management system modernization, and raised concerns about a governor’s budget proposal to transfer the Office of the Behavioral Health Advocate (primarily provider‑oriented) into the consumer‑focused OHA.
Acting Health Care Advocate Kathy Holt appeared before the Appropriations Regulation and Protection Subcommittee on Feb. 14 and described the Office of the Health Care Advocate’s work helping consumers resolve insurance disputes and advising policymakers. Holt said the office saved Connecticut consumers over $6 million in 2024 and consistently wins 70–80% of the cases it pursues.
Holt and General Counsel (and previous acting advocate) Sean (transcript: Chongqing/Sean) said they requested two additional positions to support outreach, a communications/marketing plan, and to modernize a case and data management system. “If we overhauled our imperfect case and data management system by having a skilled programmer and health data analyst, we could achieve much more effective results,” Holt said.
Holt also raised concerns about the governor’s budget proposal to transfer the separately created Office of the Behavioral Health Advocate into OHA. She said the behavioral‑health office’s advisory body appears focused on providers and that the new office’s mission overlaps with, but also diverges from, OHA’s consumer‑focused role: “To be clear, the Office of the Healthcare Advocate is already serving consumers with every type of healthcare issue, physical, mental, and behavioral health,” Holt said, adding that representing both providers and consumers could create conflicts of interest.
Why it matters: OHA provides no‑cost representation for consumers in insurance disputes and also aggregates data that drives policy recommendations; the office is funded by assessments on insurance companies. The committee asked for more detail about staff needs and how a proposed hospital financial‑assistance coordination bill (SB 1192) might require vendor support or additional staff help.
Follow‑up: OHA asked for staffing clarification and vendor funding if SB 1192 requires building online hospital assistance tools. Holt recommended that the behavioral‑health office be renamed to clarify its provider‑orientation if the transfer proceeds.
Ending: Committee members thanked OHA for its work and said the committee would examine the potential transfer and staffing implications in follow‑up discussions.
