Medicaid supplemental payments Archives - Safety-Net Association of Pennsylvania

PA Health Policy Update for the Week of December 6-10

The following is an update of selected state health policy developments in Pennsylvania for the week of December 6-10, 2021. (Some of the language used below is taken directly from state documents.)

General Assembly

The Senate Democratic Policy Committee held an informational hearing this week on substance use disorder treatment facilities. The hearing was co-hosted by senators Schwank, Tartaglione, and Muth. Panelists included individuals affected by the addiction crisis, treatment providers, and the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs. Testimony offered at the hearing and a video recording may be found here.

The state House and Senate will return to session next week. The following are the relevant health committee hearings currently scheduled.

The House Health Committee has scheduled a hearing on Monday, December 13 at 9:00 a.m. to discuss COVID-19 treatment options. Chairman Kathy Rapp has indicated the committee will examine House Bill 1741, which allows for the prescribing and dispensing of off-label drugs approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19.
The Senate Health & Human Services Committee is scheduled to convene on Tuesday, December 14 at 11:00 a.m. to consider, among other bills, Senate Bill 358, which categorizes maternal deaths and severe maternal morbidity complications as reportable events within the Department of Health and requires the Maternal Mortality Review Committee to submit a report including each reportable event to the Department of Health; Senate Bill 522, which requires all pregnant women and children in Pennsylvania to receive blood tests to detect lead poisoning; Senate Bill 848, which creates a chief nursing officer position in the Department of Health; Senate Bill 967, which establishes the Women, Infants, and Children State Advisory Board; and Senate Bill 970, which implements certain measures to verify that child protective services or law enforcement are notified of children age 13 or younger who receive treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, abortions, or contraception. The committee also will consider House Bill 118, which establishes requirements for the final disposition of fetal remains.
The House Human Services Committee has scheduled an information hearing on House Bill 1644 for next Thursday, December 16 at 9:30 a.m. House Bill 1644 directs the Department of Human Services to develop a state-wide process to place patients enrolled in Medicaid and who have behavioral health or other long-term-care needs in appropriate care settings in a timely manner. The Human Services Committee also has scheduled an 11:00 a.m. hearing to examine community participation supports during COVID-19 pandemic.

Department of Human Services

The Department of Human Services (DHS) has updated its list of regulations that have been suspended to facilitate the state’s response to the COVID-19 emergency. Find the updated list here.
The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has written to state Medicaid directors to encourage them to take advantage of a provision in the American Rescue Plan that authorizes their programs, beginning on April 1, 2022, to provide 12 months of postpartum Medicaid coverage to pregnant women enrolled in either their Medicaid or CHIP programs. Learn more from the CMS letter to state Medicaid directors. Pennsylvania announced in August that it would extend this coverage.
CMS has sent a letter to state Medicaid directors to help them understand provisions in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 that include new reporting requirements for non-disproportionate share hospitals (DSH) supplemental payments and a change in the methodology for calculating hospital-specific DSH limits. See that letter here.
DHS has issued a news release elaborating on Pennsylvania’s spending plan for approximately $1.2 billion in enhanced federal Medicaid funding made available to states through the American Rescue Plan Act. This funding will support Medicaid’s home and community-based services system throughout the state. Learn more from this DHS news release.

Department of Health

The Department of Health (DOH) has issued a seasonal influenza update urging providers to encourage their patients to receive flu vaccines, offering treatment recommendations, and reminding providers that they are required to report flu cases to the state. Learn more in this department influenza update and reminder health alert.
DOH has updated two health alerts, PA-HAN-609 and PA-HAN-610, to clarify that the visitation guidance from the department applies only to skilled nursing facilities and that other types of facilities, such as personal care homes, assisted living facilities, and intermediate-care facilities, should seek guidance from their licensing agencies when it comes to COVID-19 visitation policies.
DOH has distributed communication that it received from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services informing states that the federal government will not be enforcing the health care provider vaccination mandate while federal litigation is pending.

COVID-19: By the Numbers

Daily COVID-19 case counts remain near their highest levels since the beginning of the pandemic. To date, more than 1.8 million Pennsylvanians have contracted COVID-19.
The number of new COVID-19-related deaths also remains high.
All 67 Pennsylvania counties continue to experience a high rate of COVID-19 transmission.
The number of Pennsylvanians hospitalized because of COVID-19, in hospital ICUs because of COVID-19, and on ventilators because of the virus all rose sharply in the past week.
These numbers reflect the growing rate of occupancy in the state’s hospitals. There currently are only 481 unoccupied adult ICU beds – 13.5 percent of the total of such beds in the state; 2019 unoccupied medical/surgical beds – 10 percent of such beds in the state; 29 pediatric ICU beds (7.7 percent); 234 pediatric beds (20.8 percent); and 919 airborne isolation beds (29.1).
Media reports confirm the challenges some communities and hospitals are facing, including this report on the situation at the nine hospitals that constitute Geisinger Health; this report on the situation in Allegheny County; this report on the situation in the Erie area; and this report on the situation throughout Pennsylvania.
The Department of Health reports that 6.7 million Pennsylvanians, excluding those in Philadelphia, are now fully vaccinated; it appears likely, although not certain, that this figure reflects the original concept of “fully vaccinated” and not whether such individuals have received boosters. Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health reports slightly more than one million people fully vaccinated and that nearly 170,000 boosters have been administered to city residents since August 13.

Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs

The Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs has established minimum qualifications for the positions of project director, facility director, clinical supervisor, counselor, and counselor assistant but these regulations permit persons to meet those qualifications with a degree in an “other related field.” In Licensing Alert 03-2021 the department lists “other related fields” that meet qualifications and notes that this list is not necessarily all-inclusive and that the department will review those degrees on a case-by-case basis. Find the licensing alert here.

The Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs has published its long-delayed, much discussed final standards for drug and alcohol recovery house licensure. Find them in this Pennsylvania Bulletin notice.

Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4)

PHC4 has published its annual report on the financial performance of the state’s non-general acute-care hospitals, including rehabilitation hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, long-term acute-care hospitals, and specialty hospitals. Learn more from this PHC4 news release and the report itself. PHC4 also offers download data from the report in Excel format.

jsteinbock2021-12-10T21:44:43+00:00December 10th, 2021|Coronavirus, COVID-19, DSH hospitals, Federal Medicaid issues, Medicaid supplemental payments, Pennsylvania Bulletin, Pennsylvania Department of Health and COVID-19, Pennsylvania Department of Health coronavirus, Pennsylvania Medicaid, Pennsylvania Medicaid coronavirus, Pennsylvania Medicaid COVID-19|Comments Off

MACPAC Meets

The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission met for two days last week in Washington, D.C.

The following is MACPAC’s own summary of the sessions.

The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission kicked off its December meeting with highlights from its forthcoming issue of MACStats: Medicaid and CHIP Data Book, due out December 18, 2019. MACStats brings together statistics on Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollment and spending, federal matching rates, eligibility levels, and access to care measures, which come from multiple sources.

Later the Commission discussed a proposed rule that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued in November, which—among other changes—would increase federal oversight of Medicaid supplemental payments. The final morning session addressed payment error rates in Medicaid, with a briefing on the annual Department of Health and Human Services Agency Financial Report (AFR). Fiscal year 2019 was the first time that the AFR incorporated eligibility errors since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid eligibility and enrollment changes took effect in 2014.

After lunch, MACPAC staff summarized themes from expert roundtables convened in November, one to explore Medicaid policy on high-cost specialty drugs and another on the need for more actionable Section 1115 demonstration evaluations. Then, the Commission turned its attention to Medicaid estate recovery policies. The final session of the day looked at issues associated with reforming the current Medicaid financing structure to better respond to economic downturns.

At Friday’s opening session, the Commission considered policy options to increase participation in Medicare Savings Programs, which provide Medicare cost-sharing assistance to beneficiaries who are dually eligible for Medicaid and Medicare. Afterward, the Commission continued its examination of care integration for dually eligible beneficiaries, this time focusing on policy options to reduce barriers to integrated care. The Commission then switched gears for a briefing on a new MACPAC analysis of Medicaid’s role in financing maternity care. The December meeting concluded with a review of the draft chapter for the Commission’s March report to Congress analyzing disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments.

Supporting the discussion were the following briefing papers:

Because they serve so many Medicaid and CHIP patients – more than the typical hospital – MACPAC’s deliberations are especially important to Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals.

MACPAC is a non-partisan legislative branch agency that provides policy and data analysis and makes recommendations to Congress, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the states on a wide variety of issues affecting Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Find its web site here.

PA Safety Net Admin2019-12-17T06:00:54+00:00December 17th, 2019|DSH hospitals, Federal Medicaid issues, Medicaid supplemental payments, Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals|Comments Off

Integrating Medicaid Supplemental Payments into Value-Based Purchasing

New health care delivery and reimbursement systems and new federal regulations will result in changes in how states deploy their Medicaid resources through supplemental payments in the coming years.
A new Commonwealth Fund report describes the kinds of supplemental Medicaid payments states currently make to hospitals – such as disproportionate share and upper payment limit payments – and notes the differing degree to which individual states use such supplemental payments.
It also describes how those supplemental payments may be restructured in the coming years to foster greater use of value-based purchasing and to reward achieving state-created quality goals through new delivery and reimbursement systems such as accountable care organizations, bundled payments, shared savings program, capitated arrangements, and shared risk.
Such changes have potentially serious implications for Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals – as SNAP members learned first-hand from state Medicaid director Leesa Allen when she met with them in November in Philadelphia to discuss the commonwealth’s plans for value-based purchasing and changes in Medicaid reimbursement.
Learn more about what the future may have in store for Medicaid supplemental payments in the Commonwealth Fund report Integrating Medicaid Supplemental Payments into Value-Based Purchasing.

PA Safety Net Admin2016-12-07T06:00:49+00:00December 7th, 2016|Medicaid supplemental payments, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy|Comments Off

GAO Looks at Supplemental Medicaid Payments

Following up its own 2012 report that identified more than 500 hospitals receiving supplemental Medicaid payments that resulted in Medicaid payment surpluses, the U.S. Government Accountability Office has taken a broader look at supplemental payments state Medicaid programs make to hospitals and how those payments are used.
In a limited study of hospitals in four states, GAO found that some hospitals used supplemental payments for purposes other than serving Medicaid patients and the uninsured – purposes such as ordinary operations, capital purchases, a poison control center, even a helicopter. GAO also found that hospitals were more likely to receive such payments if local funding was used to draw down federal Medicaid matching funds. In some places, hospitals with local governments willing to finance the payments were more likely to receive them than hospitals located in places without such local support.
The GAO recommended that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services take stronger steps to ensure that supplemental Medicaid payments are linked to the provision of Medicaid services and that CMS not permit states to make those payments contingent on local financing.
Learn more about why the GAO looked at supplemental Medicaid payments, what it learned, and what it recommended in the report Federal Guidance Needed to Address Concerns About Distribution of Supplemental Payments.

PA Safety Net Admin2016-03-09T06:00:15+00:00March 9th, 2016|Uncategorized|Comments Off

GAO: More Information Needed About Supplemental Medicaid Payments

More data is needed about the supplemental Medicaid payments states make to hospitals and how those payments are financed, according to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).
According to the GAO, states are increasingly funding non-disproportionate share (Medicaid DSH) supplemental Medicaid payments to hospitals with funds from local governments and providers that are then matched by the federal government. In some states those supplemental payments, with the help of federal Medicaid matching funds, result in hospitals receiving reimbursement from Medicaid that exceeds the cost of the care they provide to their Medicaid patients.
Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals receive a number of such supplemental Medicaid payments.
In response to this concern, the GAO has urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to collect more and better data about how states finance their Medicaid programs and to do more to ensure that accuracy of that data. For its part, CMS maintains that its current efforts are adequate.
Learn more about this issue from the GAO report Improving Transparency and Accountability of Supplemental Payments and State Financing Methods, which can be found here.

PA Safety Net Admin2015-11-13T06:00:33+00:00November 13th, 2015|Medicaid supplemental payments, Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals|Comments Off

Budget Brings Good News for PA Safety-Net Hospitals

The new state budget passed in Harrisburg last weekend restored cuts to key payments to Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals.
Although the budget proposed by Governor Corbett in February called for a four percent cut in fee-for-service hospital base rate payments, that cut was restored – as were mid-year cuts to OB/NICU, burn center, and trauma center payments, which were restored to their FY 2012 enacted levels.
In addition, the budget increased payments to critical access hospitals and restored payments to academic medical centers and physician practice plans.
The budget also restored funding for separate fee-for-service payments for normal newborn care, thereby rescinding at least for FY 2013 an expedited regulation promulgated by the Department of Public Welfare that would have eliminated payments for such services.
For further information about Pennsylvania’s FY 2013 Medical Assistance budget and its implications for Pennsylvania’s safety-net hospitals, please contact Michael Chirieleison, SNAP’s president, at 717-234-6970 or mike@debrunner.us.

PA Safety Net Admin2012-07-02T16:24:34+00:00July 2nd, 2012|Medicaid supplemental payments, Pennsylvania Medicaid laws and regulations, Pennsylvania Medicaid policy, Pennsylvania state budget issues|Comments Off

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