Change Coming to PA’s Medicaid Transportation Program
Pennsylvania’s Medicaid transportation program will soon be undergoing major change.
By law, states must provide free non-emergency medical transportation for their Medicaid recipients. The Pennsylvania Medical Assistance Transportation Program has fulfilled that mandate for the past 35 years, with county governments shouldering primary responsibility for providing or arranging for the transportation for their Medicaid-covered residents.
Under a plan adopted by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, which administers the state’s Medicaid program, that would change, with the state currently reviewing proposals from private vendors that would serve as brokers and assume this responsibility for large sections of the state: the eastern, central, and western parts of Pennsylvania.
Changing the program in this manner would enable Pennsylvania to change the classification of medical transportation from an administrative cost to a service cost, which would drawn down more federal Medicaid matching funds and save the state about $10 million a year.
Learn more about what the state is doing, why it is doing it, and why some people believe the new approach may be more expensive and less effective in the Philadelphia Inquirer article “As changes come to Pa. Medicaid transportation program, counties fear bumps in road.”
Because the state’s borrowing against future tobacco settlement proceeds was never intended to result in a reduction of these payments in the future, 
An early November bulletin from CMS, however, clarifies that this approach is still permissible, which is good news for Pennsylvania safety-net hospitals and SNAP members hoping to benefit from the state’s hospital assessment.
Community HealthChoices is a new state program of managed long-term services and supports for Pennsylvanians over the age of 55 who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid.
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has vetoed a bill that included a requirement that certain Medicaid recipients either work or search for work.
Including those who provide services to the more than 2.8 million Pennsylvanians enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program.
Among the possibilities state lawmakers are discussing: tighter rules for participation, greater efficiency, work and work search requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients, charging premiums for high-income families for which Medicaid provides coverage for their profoundly disabled children, and a pilot program to test whether a recipient care management program might eliminate medical errors, improve recipient health, and reduce health care costs.
Included in this edition are articles about: