Affordable Care Act Archives - Page 12 of 16 - Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania

Will Medicaid Coverage Mean Access?

With many states preparing to expand their Medicaid programs and enroll unprecedented numbers of new people, it is not clear whether Medicaid coverage will lead to access to care.
That concern arises in the wake of a survey that found that only 43 percent of physicians accept Medicaid patients. Other providers, moreover, may not be up to filling the gap: the same survey found that only 20 percent of physician assistants and nurse practitioners serve Medicaid patients.
Thus, while more people than ever will have health insurance once the Medicaid expansion component of the Affordable Care Act takes effect, it is not clear whether those who find themselves newly insured will have reasonable access to medical services.
While the Affordable Care Act attempts to anticipate this challenge by raising the traditionally low fees that Medicare pays primary care physicians to the same level as those paid by Medicare for the next two years, it is not clear whether this new policy is working and if will have a lasting impact after the two-year experiment ends.
This could become a major challenge for Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals if the state eventually chooses to expand its Medicaid program. To date, the state has chosen not to expand the program but has been discussing the possibility of doing so with federal officials. The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP) supports Medicaid expansion in the state.
Read more about the survey and its implications in this Healthcare Finance News report .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-05-08T06:00:00+00:00May 8th, 2013|Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

IRS Issues Guidelines for Community Health Assessments

The Internal Revenue Service has issued a proposed rule governing how non-profit hospitals will conduct future community health assessments.
Such assessments are required of non-profit hospitals under the Affordable Care Act.
The new regulation also includes guidelines for hospital billing practices when serving low-income patients.
To learn more about the new regulation, find a copy of the regulation itself and an IRS fact sheet here , on the web site of the U.S. Treasury Department.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-04-12T06:00:21+00:00April 12th, 2013|Health care reform|Comments Off

PA Health Law Project Publishes March Newsletter

The Pennsylvania Health Law Project has published the March 2013 edition of Health Law PA News, its monthly newsletter.Features this month include articles about the governor’s proposed FY 2014, prospects for Medicaid expansion, coming Affordable Care Act changes, the final expansion of HealthChoices, and more.
Find a link to the complete newsletter here , on the web site of the Pennsylvania Health Law Project.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-04-11T06:00:48+00:00April 11th, 2013|Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Proposed FY 2014 Pennsylvania state budget|Comments Off

PA May Consider Private Approach to Medicaid Expansion

Still rejecting expansion of the state’s Medicaid program as envisioned under the Affordable Care Act, Pennsylvania Tom Corbett has indicated that he may be interested in following the lead of a few other states in attempting to use federal Medicaid expansion money to purchase private health insurance for newly eligible Medicaid recipients.
This news comes in the aftermath of the governor’s Washington, D.C. visit with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during which the two officials discussed the governor’s reluctance to incur the future cost increases that he believes the state will face under Medicaid expansion.
Recently, the governors of Arkansas, Ohio, and several other states have expressed interest in purchasing private insurance for new Medicaid recipients instead of expanding their states’ traditional Medicaid programs.
Read more about Governor Corbett’s meeting with Secretary Sebelius and the possibility that the state’s closed door to the question of Medicaid expansion is now slightly ajar in this Philadelphia Inquirer article.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-04-09T06:00:07+00:00April 9th, 2013|Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Medicaid Expansion Would Boost PA Economy and Pay for Itself, Report Says

A new study suggests that expanding Medicaid eligibility in Pennsylvania would create as many as 39,000 new jobs over the next seven years and generate enough new revenue to pay the state’s share of the expansion’s costs.
Or so says a new study by RAND Health.
According to the study, Medicaid expansion under the terms established by the Affordable Care Act would reduce Pennsylvania’s uninsured rate from the current 12.7 percent to 4.8 percent in 2016, spur $20 billion in economic growth by 2020, and generate more new tax revenue than the state would need to spend to pay its share of expansion’s cost once the federal share of expansion drops from 100 percent to 90 percent.
The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP) supports Medicaid expansion in the state.
Read more about the RAND Health report, and find a link to the study, in this Central Penn Business Journal article.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-04-01T06:00:54+00:00April 1st, 2013|Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

Feds Offer New Carrot to Promote Medicaid Expansion

In their desire to persuade states to expand their Medicaid programs as called for in the Affordable Care Act, federal officials are now suggesting that states could use new federal Medicaid funds to enable Medicaid-eligible people to purchase private insurance.
Even though this was not envisioned in the health reform law, the prospect of making greater use of the private sector appears to be appealing to many Republican governors who have otherwise been reluctant to commit their states to expanding their Medicaid programs.
Pennsylvania has no current plans to expand Medicaid eligibility, although there appears to be growing interest in doing so throughout the state. Expansion would add approximately 500,000 people to the state’s Medicaid rolls, many of whom would be served by safety-net hospitals. The Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP) supports Medicaid expansion in the commonwealth.
Read more about how this idea came about, why many states find it appealing, how it would work, and what the potential challenges are in this New York Times article .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-03-27T06:00:31+00:00March 27th, 2013|Health care reform, Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania|Comments Off

Immigrants Muddy Reform Calculus for Safety-Net Hospitals

Immigrants to the U.S. – legal and not – pose a special challenge in the health care environment of the future.
Legal immigrants will not be able to benefit from many of the Affordable Care Act’s provisions until they have resided in the U.S. for five years while undocumented residents will not benefit from the reform law’s Medicaid expansion at all. Meanwhile, many of these individuals will continue to turn to health care providers, and especially to hospitals, when they are sick or injured.
But is this is a problem? And if it is, how great a problem is it? How many such individuals are there?
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has attempted to answer that question in a new report titled “State Estimates of the Low-Income Uninsured Not Eligible for the ACA Medicaid Expansion.” Among the report’s findings, it notes that

Safety-net health care providers are likely to continue to be key providers for this population after health reform, and the need for safety-net care will not be spread evenly across states. The capacity of safety-net providers to fill this gap will need to be assessed. While all states will need to develop strategies for meeting the health care needs of these adults, the challenges will be particularly difficult for safety-net providers in states with large numbers of immigrants who will not be eligible for Medicaid.

According to the report, about two percent of Pennsylvania’s non-elderly adults are unauthorized or recent legal immigrants; three percent of the state’s low-income, non-elderly adults are unauthorized or recent legal immigrants; and six percent of the state’s low-income, uninsured, non-elderly adults are unauthorized or recent legal immigrants.
Many of these individuals will undoubtedly turn to Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals for medical services.
Find the report here .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-03-26T06:00:04+00:00March 26th, 2013|Health care reform|Comments Off

DSH Losses Will Hurt Safety-Net Hospitals

Safety-net and other hospitals will suffer financially when Affordable Care Act-mandated cuts in Medicare disproportionate share hospital payments (Medicare DSH) and Medicaid DSH payments begin taking effect in FY 2014.
So concludes Moody’s, the bond-rating agency.
The losses will be especially harmful to hospitals in states that do not expand their Medicaid programs and to safety-net hospitals, Moody’s believes.
Currently, Pennsylvania has no plans to expand its Medicaid program as envisioned by the Affordable Care Act.
Hospitals face other specific challenges as well as a result of these cuts.
Read more about Moody’s assessment of the impact of future Medicare DSH and Medicaid DSH cuts in this report in Becker’s Hospital Review.

PA Safety Net Admin2013-03-20T06:00:57+00:00March 20th, 2013|Health care reform|Comments Off

Editorial Calls for Medicaid Expansion in PA

The Philadelphia Inquirer has published an editorial calling on Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett to expand eligibility for the state’s Medical Assistance program as envisioned in the Affordable Care Act.
Read that editorial here .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-03-01T06:00:09+00:00March 1st, 2013|Health care reform, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

States Can Cut Medicaid Payments, Administration Says

States are free to reduce payments to providers to keep down their Medicaid costs, the Obama administration has told a court considering a challenge to a 10 percent cut in provider payments by California’s Medicaid program.
The administration weighed in on this subject in a legal brief submitted in a court case that will decide whether California can reduce its Medicaid payments to providers.
If California’s defense of its Medicaid payment cuts proves successful, it could provide a blueprint for other states to reduce payments at a time when most states are preparing for a significant expansion of their Medicaid rolls. Many states are already concerned about the potential for rising Medicaid costs while others have opted out of Medicaid expansion or are still undecided, typically citing the potential for growing costs as the primary reason for their reluctance to expand their Medicaid programs as envisioned under the Affordable Care Act.
Any movement toward reducing Medicaid payments to providers would be extremely harmful to Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals, which already suffer from inadequate payments that fail to cover the cost of the care they provide to the state’s 2.1 million Medicaid recipients.
To learn more about the California case and its potential implications elsewhere, see this New York Times article .

PA Safety Net Admin2013-02-28T06:00:15+00:00February 28th, 2013|Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

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