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

Healthy PA Road Show Visits Philadelphia

The process of taking public input on Governor Corbett’s Healthy Pennsylvania Medicaid expansion and health care reform proposal continued last Friday with a hearing in Philadelphia.
Among those who testified before Department of Public Welfare Secretary Beverly Mackereth and other state officials were representatives of Project Home, the Cover the Commonwealth Campaign, the Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania, the Health Federation of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Health Care Association, Jefferson Health System, and Mercy Health System, the newest member of the Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP).
Read more about the hearing and the testimony offered in this Philadelphia Business Journal report.
The hearing was the third of six schedule sessions. Hearings already have been held in Erie and Pittsburgh; a hearing is scheduled for today, January 6, in Scranton; and hearings also will be held on January 7 in Altoona and January 9 in Harrisburg. SNAP president Michael Chirieleison will testify in Harrisburg and SNAP also will submit extensive written comments about the Healthy Pennsylvania proposal.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-01-06T06:00:49+00:00January 6th, 2014|Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

New PA Medicaid Enrollees May be Delayed

A technical problem will result in 25,000 Pennsylvanians who were told they were eligible for Medicaid not being enrolled in the program as quickly as anticipated.
In recent months, approximately 25,000 Pennsylvanians have visited the federal healthcare.gov web site and had their eligibility for Medicaid or the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) confirmed through the site. Currently, however, the federal government is having trouble transmitting the data it received from those applicants to the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare. As a result, many people who believed they would be enrolled in Medicaid on January 1 are still not eligible for the state and federally medical services.
Read more about the technical problems standing between these low-income Pennsylvanians and Medicaid services in this Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-01-03T06:00:31+00:00January 3rd, 2014|Health care reform|Comments Off

New Members

The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania is pleased to welcome two new members: Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital (Darby, PA) and Mercy Philadelphia Hospital.
Welcome!

PA Safety Net Admin2014-01-02T14:34:54+00:00January 2nd, 2014|Uncategorized|Comments Off

Medicaid Applications Flowing From DC to PA

Pennsylvania is now receiving Medicaid applications from the federal government’s health insurance marketplace website.
Improvements in the healthcare.gov web site have enabled the federal government to begin sending data about Medicaid-eligible applicants to a number of states, including Pennsylvania. Until now, the data had been promised but technical problems prevented the federal government from fulfilling that promise.
Read more about the process of transforming visitors to the healthcare.gov into Pennsylvania Medicaid applicants in this Reading Eagle article.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-12-26T06:00:04+00:00December 26th, 2013|Health care reform|Comments Off

Healthy PA Testimony in Pittsburgh

Thirty people testified at a recent public hearing in Pittsburgh as the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare continued its tour of the state seeking input on Governor Corbett’s Healthy Pennsylvania proposal and its Medicaid expansion component.
Among those who testified were both supporters and critics of the plan.
To learn more about the views expressed during the three-hour public hearing, read reports from the Pittsburgh Tribune Review and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-12-24T06:00:26+00:00December 24th, 2013|Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Where are the Uninsured?

A new interactive map from the New York Times enables readers to explore the entire country, county by county – including all 67 counties in Pennsylvania – and see how many of each county’s residents are uninsured, how many are publicly insured, and how many are privately insured.
Find the map here.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-12-23T06:00:12+00:00December 23rd, 2013|Uncategorized|Comments Off

It’s Unanimous: All PA Non-General Acute-Care Hospitals Made Money in 2012

2012 was a very good year for non-general acute-care hospitals in Pennsylvania: every single one of them scored a positive operating margin.
The winners included 19 rehabilitation hospitals, 27 long-term acute-care hospitals, and 19 non-state-operated free-standing psychiatric hospitals, according to a new report from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4).
Learn more about the performance of these providers in 2012 in this PHC4 news release and this PHC4 report.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-12-19T09:02:13+00:00December 19th, 2013|Uncategorized|Comments Off

Iowa Approval Good Sign for PA?

Last week the federal government granted Iowa permission to expand its Medicaid program by enabling newly eligible residents to purchase state-approved, subsidized private health insurance.
Pennsylvania currently is planning to make a similar request, and Iowa now is the second state to be permitted to move forward in this manner. Arkansas received permission for a similar approach to Medicaid expansion in September.
While there are differences between the approved Arkansas and Iowa programs and the approach embodied in the Corbett administration’s “Healthy Pennsylvania” proposal, the Iowa approval suggests a continued willingness of the federal government to consider private insurance market alternatives to Medicaid expansion.
Learn more about the approved Iowa plan in this Kaiser Health News report.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-12-17T06:00:07+00:00December 17th, 2013|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Health Insurance Jam Easing for Pennsylvanians

The much-troubled healthcare.gov web site through which people can obtain individual and family health insurance policies has apparently improved enough that Pennsylvanians are starting to find their way into the exchange in pursuit of the insurance they seek.
In November, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, nearly 10,000 Pennsylvanians obtained insurance through the federal site; 74,000 submitted applications for policies that would cover 137,000 people (applicants and family members); 100,000 established eligibility but have not yet selected a plan; 40,000 established eligibility for insurance premium subsidization; and 6800 were found eligible for Medicaid or CHIP.
Read more about Pennsylvanians and their November experiences seeking Affordable Care Act-mandated health insurance in this Centre Daily Times report.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-12-16T06:00:53+00:00December 16th, 2013|Affordable Care Act|Comments Off

CMS Seeks to Slow “Meaningful Use” Timetable

The federal government has proposed extending the deadlines for health care providers to demonstrate “meaningful use” of health information technology and receive supplemental Medicare and Medicaid payments to help pay for the acquisition and implementation of that technology.
As proposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Stage 2 deadlines for demonstrating use of electronic health records, originally set for 2014, would be pushed back to 2016 and Stage 3 deadlines, currently in 2016, would begin in 2017 for qualified providers.
Funding for the supplemental payments comes through the 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.
Learn more about the program and why CMS is proposing a delay in this explanation on the CMS web site.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-12-12T06:00:23+00:00December 12th, 2013|Uncategorized|Comments Off

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