Pennsylvania Medicaid policy Archives - Page 31 of 43 - Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania

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

Enough Docs to Go Around?

With nine million people expected to enroll in Medicaid in the coming year, questions are arising about whether there will be enough physicians to serve them.
Across the country there has long been a shortage of physicians, and especially specialists, willing to serve Medicaid patients because of how poorly most state Medicaid programs pay those doctors. Now, with more people than ever expected to become insured by Medicaid, it is not clear whether the existing physician pool will be able to serve them very effectively.
The Affordable Care Act anticipated this problem and included a two-year increase in Medicaid payments to physicians, a move designed to raise Medicaid rates to the same level as those paid by Medicare. But states have been slow to make these payments, which were expected to begin last January, and physicians recognize that this will only be a temporary raise. As a result, fewer physicians than expected have agreed to serve Medicaid patients.
Whether this might pose a problem for Pennsylvania and its safety-net hospitals could depend on whether Governor Tom Corbett’s “Healthy Pennsylvania” proposal is fully implemented and the state expands Medicaid enrollment through the private health insurance market. One of the selling points of the Healthy Pennsylvania proposal has been that working through private insurers, rather than Medicaid managed care organizations or the state itself, should result in better payments for health care providers, thereby making those providers more willing to serve Medicaid patients.
See this New York Times article for a look at these and other questions related to the upcoming Medicaid expansion and the ability of the medical community to meet an unprecedented demand for care.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-12-03T06:00:13+00:00December 3rd, 2013|Affordable Care Act, Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Enrolling Homeless in Medicaid Poses Challenges, Offers Hope

Enrolling the homeless in Medicaid poses numerous logistical challenges for government, providers, and caregivers but also offers the prospect of improving the lives of those who gain access to care.
Many low-income, homeless adults will be eligible for Medicaid for the first time in states that expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, but enrolling them in the program can be difficult: they can be hard to find, hard to convince to apply, and hard to enroll because they lack such basics as a mailing address and telephone number.
Yet bringing health care to such individuals could greatly improve their lives and perhaps help address their homelessness by ending the financial stresses that resulted in homelessness or improving their health to the point where they qualify for housing services.
While Pennsylvania still has not expanded its Medicaid program, it now appears to be on a cautious path toward doing so in the near future. If it does, enrolling the homeless in Medicaid also offers the prospect of the state’s safety-net hospitals receiving Medicaid reimbursement for the care they provide to such patients, typically through their emergency departments.
Learn more about the challenges of enrolling the homeless and Medicaid and the benefits of Medicaid eligibility for the homeless in this New York Times article.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-11-26T06:00:25+00:00November 26th, 2013|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

400,000 Fall Into PA Insurance Gap

400,000 Pennsylvanians currently fall into a gap between eligibility for the state’s Medicaid program and qualifying for health insurance subsidies through the state’s health insurance marketplace.
Under the Affordable Care Act, states were to expand eligibility for their Medicaid programs while the federal government would provide partial subsidies for low-income people who remained ineligible for Medicaid but were unlikely to be able to afford health insurance without such assistance.
But when the Supreme Court made Medicaid expansion optional for states, many people fell into a new insurance gap that was not anticipated when the 2010 reform law was written. Approximately half of the 50 states have expanded their Medicaid programs as the law expected, but in the half that did not, millions remain in this gap, earning too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to be able to afford health insurance.
Among those millions are 400,000 Pennsylvanians because the commonwealth has not decided to move forward and expand its Medicaid program. Currently, state officials are exploring such expansion through a new “Healthy Pennsylvania” initiative and are negotiating possible terms for expansion with the federal government.
Learn more about Pennsylvania’s insurance gap, who is in it, why it exists, and why it is a candidate to disappear sometime in the future in this Philadelphia Inquirer article.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-11-20T06:00:19+00:00November 20th, 2013|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Uncategorized|Comments Off

ACA Drives Rise in Medicaid Enrollment

While some aspects of implementation of the Affordable Care Act continue to struggle with technical problems, one aspect is moving ahead effectively: enrollment in Medicaid is on the rise.
More than 400,000 newly eligible people in just ten states have enrolled in Medicaid since October 1. The ten states are among the 25 that have decided to expand their Medicaid programs in accordance with provisions of the federal health care reform law. Other states either have chosen not to expand their programs or are still undecided about expansion.
Pennsylvania is one of the states that has not expanded its Medicaid program but state officials are currently negotiating a possible expansion with the federal government. The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania supports such an expansion.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that nine million people will join the Medicaid ranks through Affordable Care Act expansion provisions in the coming year.
For more about the increase in Medicaid enrollment and how it is being accomplished despite some of the reform law’s early technical problems, see this Washington Post article.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-11-13T06:00:03+00:00November 13th, 2013|Affordable Care Act, Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

SNAP Asks PA Delegation to Protect Safety-Net Hospitals in Budget Talks

As the congressional budget conference committee begins its work, SNAP has asked members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation to urge their colleagues serving on the committee to protect the state’s safety-net hospitals from any further Medicare and Medicaid cuts.
In the message, SNAP notes the significant Medicare and Medicaid cuts the state’s safety-net hospitals have already suffered and warns that further cuts could jeopardize access to care in communities across the commonwealth.
Read SNAP’s message to the Pennsylvania congressional delegation here, on the SNAP web site.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-10-30T06:00:36+00:00October 30th, 2013|Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania, Uncategorized|Comments Off

A Look at the Corbett Medicaid Proposal

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s “Healthy Pennsylvania” proposal calls for an expansion of the state’s Medicaid program as envisioned when the Affordable Care Act was passed three years ago.
Or does it?
Is it Medicaid expansion or is it something entirely different? In the article “Pennsylvania Governor Talks Up Plan To Expand Medicaid His Way,” Kaiser Health News takes a look at how elected officials, advocates, and others are viewing the recent Healthy Pennsylvania proposal. Find the article here.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-10-29T06:00:07+00:00October 29th, 2013|Affordable Care Act, Healthy PA, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Hospitals Complain About Low Medicaid Payments

Even as Pennsylvania considers a new approach to serving some Medicaid patients, hospitals are complaining about the inadequacy of the state’s Medicaid payments for outpatient services.
Those payments, hospitals note, sometimes amount to only 30-40 percent of the cost of some outpatient services.
While Medicaid inpatient fees have been raised on several occasions over the years, outpatient fees have been the same for more than two decades.
Read more about the challenges Pennsylvania hospitals face in getting adequate reimbursement for Medicaid outpatient services in this Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-10-25T06:00:26+00:00October 25th, 2013|Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Latest Edition of Health Law PA News

The Pennsylvania Health Law Project has released its latest edition of its Health Law PA News newsletter.
The September 2013 edition includes articles about the launch of the federal health insurance marketplace, the new Medicaid eligibility rules that took effect on October 1, Governor Corbett’s proposed Medicaid expansion, and more.
Find the latest Health Law PA News here.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-10-23T06:00:09+00:00October 23rd, 2013|Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Millions to Fall Into Coverage Gap

More than five million adult Americans will fall into the Affordable Care Act’s Supreme Court-created coverage gap in states that have chosen not to expand their Medicaid programs.
In those 26 states, adults whom the reform law intended to be covered by Medicaid will still earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid yet also will fall below the income level needed to qualify for Affordable Care Act health insurance subsidies.
This gap was created when the Supreme Court made the reform law-mandated Medicaid expansion optional for individual states, and so far, 26 states have chosen not to expand their Medicaid programs. The result, according to a new issue brief from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, is that 5.2 million low-income adults whom the law intended to enroll in Medicaid will remain uninsured.
More than 280,000 of these people reside in Pennsylvania, which has not yet expanded its Medicaid program. Many will continue to be served by the state’s private safety-net hospitals, which will not be paid for the care they provide.
To learn more about these people and why they will remain uninsured, read the study “The Coverage Gap: Uninsured Poor Adults in States That Do Not Expand Medicaid.” Find the study here, on the web site of the Kaiser Family Foundation.