PA Safety Net Admin, Author at Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania

Insurance Subsidies Will Be Common

Nearly half of all individuals and families expected to turn to health insurance exchanges for insurance policies under the Affordable Care Act will be entitled to federal subsidies to help pay their premiums.
Those subsidies will average more than $5500 per family and cover two-thirds of a premium’s overall cost.
These subsidies will be critical for Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals, which currently find themselves providing significant amounts of uncompensated care to low-income but working individuals and families that cannot afford health insurance today.
These were among the findings of a recent Kaiser Family Foundation analysis. Read more about the analysis and the future that awaits individuals and families in the new individual health insurance market in this CQ HealthBeat article presented by the Commonwealth Fund.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-08-22T06:00:31+00:00August 22nd, 2013|Affordable Care Act|Comments Off

PA Posts FY 2013 Medicaid DSH Eligibility

The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare has published a notice in the Pennsylvania Bulletin listing all hospitals eligible for Medicaid disproportionate share adjustments (Medicaid DSH) during the state’s 2013 fiscal year. See the Pennsylvania Bulletin notice here .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-08-21T11:38:38+00:00August 21st, 2013|Medicaid supplemental payments, Pennsylvania Bulletin|Comments Off

New Pennsylvania Health Law Project Newsletter

The Pennsylvania Health Law Project has released its latest newsletter.
Features include articles about the state budget and the possible expansion of Medicaid eligibility in Pennsylvania; upcoming changes facing CHIP and PA Fair Care participants; an upcoming study on serving dual eligibles in the state; a new state Medicaid waiver application; and more.
Find the latest Pennsylvania Health Law Project newsletter here.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-08-15T06:00:04+00:00August 15th, 2013|Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Pennsylvania state budget issues|Comments Off

State Issues Medicaid Budget Summary

The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare’s Office of Medical Assistance Programs has released a summary and overview of its recently passed FY 2014 Medicaid budget.
Find the overview document here .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-08-13T06:00:48+00:00August 13th, 2013|Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Pennsylvania state budget issues, Proposed FY 2014 Pennsylvania state budget|Comments Off

MAAC Meets

The Medical Assistance Advisory Committee that works with the Pennsylvania’s Department of Public Welfare met recently in Harrisburg.
Among the subjects discussed during the meeting were the state’s recently passed budget, the Medical Assistance program, the prospects for Medicaid expansion, and more.
Read the official state file note summarizing the meeting here .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-08-07T06:00:18+00:00August 7th, 2013|Meetings and notices, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Pennsylvania state budget issues|Comments Off

Tackling Medicaid “Super-Users”

All Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals have them: a relatively small number of Medicaid patients who are constantly in need of care.
Five percent of all Medicaid beneficiaries account for more than half of all Medicaid expenditures. The challenges such patients pose are legitimate: many have multiple chronic conditions.
How best to serve these patients? The Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services has been looking into this problem and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have been underwriting demonstration programs designed to find better ways to care for these patients.
Read more about the problem and these models, and find a direct link to a Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services advisory bulletin on the subject, here on the Fierce Healthcare web site.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-08-01T06:00:23+00:00August 1st, 2013|Uncategorized|Comments Off

Docs Dropping Medicare in Growing Numbers

More than 9500 doctors stopped accepting Medicare in 2012 – nearly three times as many who dropped out of the program just three years earlier.
In addition, the proportion of family doctors who accepted new Medicare patients that year fell from 83 percent in 2010 to 81 percent.
While most doctors who leave Medicare cite what they consider to be its inadequate payment rates, some do not want to adopt electronic health records and others feel that they can fare better financially without the additional staff needed to process Medicare claims.
While some Medicare patients choose to pay out of their own pocket rather than switch doctors, that is seldom an option for most of the low-income patients served by Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals.
Read more about the challenges Medicare faces in retaining enough doctors to serve the nation’s aging population and why more doctors are dropping out of the program in this Wall Street Journal article .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-07-31T06:00:37+00:00July 31st, 2013|Uncategorized|Comments Off

Hearing Set on Medicaid Expansion

The Pennsylvania House Democratic Policy Committee will hold a hearing on Medicaid expansion in the state this Thursday, August 1 in Philadelphia.
The hearing, which will begin at 10:00 a.m., will be held at the Independence Center’s Liberty View Ballroom, at 6th and Market Streets.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-07-30T06:00:51+00:00July 30th, 2013|Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

The Implications of Rejecting Medicaid Expansion

Twenty-one states have decided not to expand their Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act and another six states remain undecided.
How will these decisions affect these states and their residents? How many people who might have become eligible for Medicaid will remain uninsured? How much federal Medicaid revenue will these states forgo? How will these decisions affect hospitals’ uncompensated care costs? How might payments to hospitals be affected?
Pennsylvania is one of the six states where Medicaid expansion is still being considered, and the report includes specific projections for the commonwealth. The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP) supports Medicaid expansion in the state.
A new study from the Urban Institute attempts to quantify the answers to these and other questions. Find “The Cost of Not Expanding Medicaid” here , on the web site of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-07-25T06:00:48+00:00July 25th, 2013|Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

SNAP Comments on Observation Rate Proposal

The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania has submitted a formal comment letter to the state’s Department of Public Welfare in response to the department’s expressed interest in establishing an observation rate in the state’s Medical Assistance fee-for-service program.
DPW expressed this interest in a June 29 Pennsylvania Bulletin notice.
SNAP supports the creation of an observation rate, and in its letter it outlines how it believes DPW should go about developing a rate that is fair to hospitals.
Safety-net hospitals have a special interest in this issue because observation rate candidates enter hospitals through their emergency rooms and safety-net hospitals typically have among the busiest emergency rooms in the communities they serve.
Read SNAP’s observation rate comment letter here .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-07-23T16:12:30+00:00July 23rd, 2013|Pennsylvania Bulletin, Pennsylvania Medicaid laws and regulations, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

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