Affordable Care Act Archives - Page 12 of 15 - Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania

Providers Receive Expanded Authority to Extend Presumptive Medicaid Eligibility

While hospitals and providers in 33 states have long enjoyed the ability to extend presumptive eligibility for Medicaid to children or pregnant women, that authority is now being extended in some states to any adults whose income appears likely to fall below 138 percent of the federal poverty level.
The extension of this authority comes via the Affordable Care Act, which also offers states the option of expanding Medicaid eligibility for their residents. Individual states decide whether to extend this authority, which is typically wielded by hospitals, schools, clinics, other providers of care to the Medicaid and CHIP population, Head Start programs, and others.
This policy could benefit many Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals because they serve much higher proportions of low-income patients than the average hospital. Currently, 52 acute-care hospitals in the state are authorized to determine presumptive eligibility.
To learn more about changes in extending presumptive eligibility to low-income patients, see the policy brief “Hospital Presumptive Eligibility” from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the publication Health Affairs.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-01-16T12:31:52+00:00January 16th, 2014|Affordable Care Act, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Pennsylvania, the Uninsured, and the Affordable Care Act

How will the Affordable Care Act expand health insurance coverage in Pennsylvania?
How many Pennsylvanians might be eligible for subsidized insurance under the reform law?
These questions and others are addressed in the new Kaiser Family Foundation report “How Will the Uninsured in Pennsylvania Fare Under the Affordable Care Act?” Find that report here.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-01-13T06:00:54+00:00January 13th, 2014|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform|Comments Off

SNAP Testifies About Healthy Pennsylvania

The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP) has weighed in on Governor Corbett’s Healthy Pennsylvania health care reform and insurance expansion proposal.
Testifying at a January 9 public hearing in Harrisburg, SNAP president Michael Chirieleison expressed general support for the Healthy Pennsylvania proposal and addressed four aspects of it that safety-net hospitals would like to see improved:

extension of retroactive eligibility to the Medicaid expansion population;
including inpatient services provided to that same population as “Medicaid days” for the purpose of determining eligibility for supplemental Medicaid payments and other government programs;
reconsideration of proposed benefit limits and suspension of eligibility for non-payment of premiums; and
the addition of a Delivery System Reform Incentive Program or a similar program to support the development of health care infrastructure in communities with large numbers of low-income Pennsylvanians.

Read SNAP’s testimony here.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-01-09T14:14:05+00:00January 9th, 2014|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Concern About Churn

State government and health insurers are worried about a process called “churning” – people moving back and forth between Medicaid and private insurers as their income changes. With more people now qualified for Medicaid, observers believe that as many as nine million people may move back and forth between Medicaid and private insurance in 2014.
In the past, people whose income rose enough to lose their Medicaid eligibility often could not afford private insurance and joined the ranks of the uninsured. Now, some will be eligible for subsidies that may enable them to purchase health insurance on their own. People who move back and forth between insurers, however, may be at risk of gaps in coverage and loss of continuity of care.
Churn may be especially prevalent in the lower-income communities served by Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals.
How does churn work and what are the states doing to anticipate and address it? Learn more in this Washington Post article.

PA Safety Net Admin2014-01-08T06:00:58+00:00January 8th, 2014|Affordable Care Act|Comments Off

Supply of Doctors to be Tested by the Newly Insured

With various aspects of the Affordable Care Act helping millions of people obtain health insurance, it remains to be seen whether there will be enough doctors to care for them.
In particular, primary care physicians, dentists, and mental health professionals could be in short supply, leaving some newly insured patients struggling to find providers to help them exercise their new access to care. Many parts of the country, in fact, have been certified by the federal government as health professional shortage areas. Pennsylvania has many health professional shortage areas and federally designated medically underserved areas.
Learn more about the potential shortage of physicians, where that problem arises, and what is being done about it in this Stateline report .

PA Safety Net Admin2014-01-07T06:00:49+00:00January 7th, 2014|Affordable Care Act|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

Delay in Switch From CHIP to Medicaid

The federal government is permitting Pennsylvania to delay shifting children currently enrolled in the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) into Medicaid.
The state has objected to such a transition, which is mandated by the Affordable Care Act, and is in the process of attempting to negotiate a compromise with federal officials. Those federal officials have agreed to delay the required transition until they have an opportunity to review the state’s new proposal, which should be delivered later this week.
Learn more about this issue in this article in The (Cumberland County) Sentinel.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-12-10T06:00:51+00:00December 10th, 2013|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

PA Seeks Federal OK for Medicaid Expansion

The Corbett administration is asking the federal government to authorize the expansion of the state’s Medicaid program to serve another 500,000 people.
Healthy Pennsylvania, the reform plan unveiled by the Corbett administration in September, calls for expanding eligibility for Medicaid as envisioned in the federal Affordable Care Act but providing coverage to newly eligible individuals through private insurers
Under the plan, most newly eligible recipients would select state-subsidized insurance through the federal health insurance marketplace and receive the same benefits as regular commercial customers.
Healthy Pennsylvania also calls for streamlined benefits packages, enrollee premiums, and a work search requirement.
The formal unveiling of the plan is linked to the state’s application to the federal government for a waiver from selected federal Medicaid requirements. While states routinely request such waivers, each waiver is subject to individual scrutiny and negotiation between the state and federal governments after a period of public comment at the state level.
To learn more about the Healthy Pennsylvania proposal, see this Philadelphia Inquirer article. The administration also has published a description of its proposed application for the federal waiver, including information about how interested parties may comment on the proposal, in the Pennsylvania Bulletin; that notice can be found here. The complete draft waiver application can be found here.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-12-06T10:48:35+00:00December 6th, 2013|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Bulletin, Pennsylvania Medicaid laws and regulations, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Uncategorized|Comments Off

Feds Find Temporary Way to Overcome Medicaid Enrollment Problem

The problems plaguing the beleaguered healthcare.gov web site continue to make it difficult for people to find new health insurance, but a new approach devised by the federal government will make it easier for Medicaid applicants to overcome this problem.
While the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) was having trouble sending completed Medicaid and CHIP applications to the states, it continued sending them basic data from Medicaid and CHIP applications on a weekly basis primarily to help them gauge possible interest in Medicaid enrollment. Now, it is telling states they can use this limited data to enroll such individuals in their Medicaid programs without complete applications.
This process is expected to facilitate enrollment in states that have chosen to expand eligibility for their Medicaid programs. To date, Medicaid enrollment has been one of the brightest aspects of the troubled launch of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance expansion. While Pennsylvania is not expanding its Medicaid program at this time, the process could facilitate the enrollment of so-called woodwork applicants: people who are already eligible for Medicaid and never enrolled but have been drawn to do so by all of the attention the Medicaid expansion and Affordable Care Act have received.
To learn more about the CMS workaround to this problem, read this Kaiser Health News report or read the letter CMS sent to state Medicaid directors describing how this process will work.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-12-05T06:00:58+00:00December 5th, 2013|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

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